Broken lives: Why Kenya’s protection against GBV is failing despite 2026 deadline
Gender-based violence on the rise as government efforts fail ahead of the 2026 deadline.
What you need to know:
- Government pledges to end GBV by 2026 have stalled, with shelters collapsing under budget cuts, misreported GBV data, and key reforms abandoned.
- Survivors, activists, and shelter managers warn that the protection system is failing the people it is meant to safeguard.
As femicide rates rise and digital violence intensifies, Kenya faces a widening gap between policy promises and real-life protection.
“Would we please not talk about it!”
The plea is poignant. It comes from Salama*, a student leader at a university in western Kenya who endured a wave of digital torment while campaigning for the vice-chairperson position in the student leadership association last year.
“I would go to bed desperate for rest after a punishing day on the campaign trail, only to wake up to torrents of messages from peers showing digitally altered images of me in sexual poses,” she whispers, her voice tight with the sting of a fresh wound.
“How does someone even do something like that? Do they care what happens after they post such fake photos?” she asks.
Sharing such manipulated images is not merely malicious disinformation designed to destroy a person’s character; it is a form of technologically facilitated gender-based violence (GBV), commonly referred to as digital or online violence. It is labelled gender-based because the abuse is disproportionately directed at women, whose experiences online tend to be far more severe and more frequent than those of men.
Behind the numbers
Although studies on digital violence against men remain limited, the Economist Intelligence Unit reported in 2021 that 38 per cent of women have personally experienced online abuse, while 85 per cent have witnessed it happening to other women.
A 2024 joint study on digital violence in Kenya’s higher learning institutions, conducted by the Collaborative Center for Gender and Development and the University of Nairobi Women’s Economic Empowerment Hub, shows that 35.5 per cent of male students have experienced at least one form of online violence.
Behind these numbers are survivors like Salama, who have faced the full force of this rapidly evolving form of abuse—one that has deepened over the past decade and worsened with the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI), which enables people to create images so sophisticated that they are difficult to detect without close scrutiny.
The Internet Governance Forum lists infringement of privacy, surveillance, monitoring, and reputational damage as acts constituting digital violence. These include harassment, which may occur alongside offline attacks, direct threats, and targeted assaults on individuals or communities.
Using sexist or gendered comments, sharing indecent images to demean women, or abusing a woman for expressing views that challenge social norms—all are recognised forms of harassment.
What manifests in online spaces is merely an extension of normalised violence experienced in homes, workplaces, schools, markets, public transport, and even at water points where men and women compete for scarce resources. The Institute of Development Studies’ 2021 report on global evidence of the prevalence and impact of online gender-based violence underscores this point, noting that digital abuse forms “part of a continuum of abuse where normalised behaviours, such as sexual harassment in public spaces, shade into behaviours widely recognised as criminal.”
The State Department of Gender already recognises digital violence as a threat to freedom of speech and expression in online spaces. On November 21, 2025—just four days before the 16 Days of Activism—it announced via its social media platforms that it is developing a digital safe space tool to facilitate reporting of online abuse, survivor referrals, and tracing of perpetrators. The tool will also serve as a national repository of GBV data, enabling data-driven interventions and response mechanisms.
However, the Kenya Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2025–30) is notably silent on the rising threat of AI-powered digital violence. Meanwhile, the Sexual Offences Act (2006) is under review to incorporate emerging forms of sexual violence.
Promising targets
By 2026, former President Uhuru Kenyatta had envisioned an end to all forms of GBV, committing the government to invest substantially towards this goal. As a co-leader of the global GBV Action Coalition under the Generation Equality Forum, Kenya had set 12 key actions to eliminate all forms of GBV by 2026. For survivors, civil society, academia, and GBV responders, this target sounded promising. For government, it signalled progress. But on the ground, the reality remains troubling.
“How exactly are you ending defilement when you cannot even go about your work in peace because your daughter is playing away from you?” asks Jane*, a mother whose three-year-old daughter was violated last year in Busia County.
A man displaced by floods on a nearby island assaulted her. The case is ongoing at the Port Victoria Law Courts. “I cannot look for work elsewhere because my daughter is traumatised and needs special attention. My life feels like a prison because one man was inhuman to my child. He turned my life upside down,” she says, her voice breaking.
For Jane, closing the chapter on sexual violence begins with the government acknowledging that there is a deep-seated societal problem—and confronting the attitudes that fuel abuse to stop violations before they happen. She believes courts should ensure survivors are compensated by the rapist or defiler for the harm caused.
This survivor-centred approach is what Uhuru appeared to have in mind when his administration proposed including a GBV indicator in the government performance contracting framework. This measure would have obliged ministries, departments, and agencies to fully implement GBV laws and policies, cascading responsibility throughout the public service.
Jane’s vision of prevention mirrors that pledge. But the indicator was dropped in the 2023–24 financial year under President William Ruto’s administration.
Similarly, the promise to establish a GBV Survivors’ Fund through a co-financing model involving the private sector, civil society, and development partners has yet to materialise. The same applies to the ratification and implementation of ILO Convention 190 on ending GBV and harassment in the workplace.
Shelters without funding
There is, however, a glimmer of hope within the National Treasury. Uhuru had set a benchmark of $23 million (Sh2.97 billion)—equivalent to 62 per cent of the State Department for Gender’s 2024–25 budget—for GBV prevention and response by 2022, with plans to increase this to $50 million (Sh6.48 billion) by 2026 through a co-financing model.
Yet in the 2025–26 budget, Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi allocated just Sh254 million for strengthening GBV prevention and response—only 8.55 per cent of Uhuru’s original target. This inadequate financing has caused mounting frustration among stakeholders.
Shelters and organisations providing free GBV services—medical, legal, and psychological—through donor-funded programmes have been among the hardest hit by government inertia. While the Judiciary has opened Gender Justice Courts (renamed from SGBV Courts after users associated the former name with a stigmatised “courts of sex” label), the shelters to which these courts refer survivors for safety can barely afford to feed them due to lack of funding.
Read: Women on the frontline: Study warns GBV in agriculture is a growing business and economic risk
In the 2022–23 financial year, these courts were launched in priority hotspot counties including Nairobi (Kibra and Makadara), Meru, Nakuru, Kiambu, Machakos, Mombasa, Kisii, Trans Nzoia, Kakamega, Siaya, and Kisumu. Gender Justice Registries were also established in Meru, Nakuru, Kiambu, Machakos, Kisii, Kitale, and Kakamega law courts.
The USAID decision to freeze or scale back funding has left shelter providers in crisis, despite their critical role in the continuum of GBV response and despite the fact that the curve of abuse is not flattening. In the 2024–25 financial year, the courts received 31,460 new GBV cases—a slight drop from 32,909 the previous year but still alarmingly high. Several counties continue to record more than 1,000 violations of women and girls annually.
Nairobi, Meru, Kiambu, Nakuru, Machakos, Kisii, Kakamega, and Bungoma consistently fall within this category. Kisumu and Kilifi remain volatile. Beyond the scarcity of shelters, the deeper concern lies in the lack of proper resourcing to empower women to rebuild their lives beyond temporary safety—an effort that hinges entirely on funding.
Only two public shelters
The National Shelters Network has mapped 95 shelters countrywide, but only two serve men and boys, and these face even greater funding constraints due to a funding ecosystem that has not yet sufficiently recognised the protection needs of men and boys. On paper, five of the 95 shelters are county-run. However, after verification, only two are actually operational.
Edith Murogo, the network’s Convener and Executive Director of the Centre for Domestic Training and Development, says that although shelters are expected to provide holistic support—counselling, temporary accommodation, and livelihood rebuilding—most can barely offer basic safety due to severe resource constraints.
Only a handful manage to run skills training programmes, typically including catering, hair and beauty, beading, tailoring, soap making, nail painting, mat making, and basic computer skills. However, she emphasises that the majority cannot sustain such programmes due to chronic underfunding and inadequate facilities. Many struggle to maintain clean beds, secure spaces, and consistent meals for survivors.
“The collapse of the USAID funding ecosystem has pushed shelters to the brink,” she says. “Although USAID did not directly fund shelters, many relied on USAID-funded organisations for essential external services—medical treatment, vocational training, or education programmes.”
To cope with shrinking resources, shelters have been forced to scale down operations. Many have reduced the number of survivors they can host, cut staff, postponed training programmes, or limited services to the bare minimum. Some organise charity walks or fundraising dinners, while others lease parts of their premises to generate income.
Even with these efforts, the financial strain persists. Shelter managers routinely make distress calls to help buy food, medicine, or pay rent. This is the case for Sister Teresa Nduku, Director of the Mary Immaculate Girl Child Rescue Centre in Suguta Mar-Mar, Samburu County, who is hosting 98 girls—nearly double her capacity of 50—and is struggling to feed them during the long school holiday without the consistent support she previously received from USAID-funded organisations. “I have had to find families to host them so that even if I remain with 40, the burden is lighter,” she says quietly.
No legal framework
Behind these operational struggles lies a deeper structural failure: Kenya has no legal or regulatory framework to recognise, register, or fund shelters. The Protection Against Domestic Violence Act (2015) did not initially include shelters, leaving service providers to find alternative registration pathways. Some shelters are registered as NGOs, others as women’s groups, faith-based organisations, youth groups, or charitable children’s institutions.
Edith argues that this patchwork system is unsustainable and leaves shelters vulnerable to closure or harassment, as they lack a formal status aligned to their work. The network is pushing for an amendment to the Act to formally recognise shelters, standardise their registration, and guarantee state funding.
Kenya would not be the first to take this route. Edith cites examples from Australia, Colombia, and South Africa, where governments directly fund shelters—with South Africa covering up to 40 per cent of their budget needs. She says Kenya must adopt similar models to offer meaningful protection to GBV survivors.
Protection is economic empowerment
Part of meaningful protection involves giving survivors a viable exit strategy and a clear path to reintegration. How do they rebuild their lives in ways that prevent them from returning to their abusers or becoming vulnerable to new ones? And who can they safely return to—someone willing to support their healing without re-traumatising them?
Prof Judith Waudo, Leader of the Kenyatta University Women’s Economic Empowerment Hub, argues that the government has failed in coordination and service provision, leaving shelters barely functional and GBV data in disarray. She explains that during her team’s research on the cost of GBV, they uncovered widespread misreporting across institutions. A single case is often recorded multiple times—in hospitals, chiefs’ offices, women’s rights organisations, and police stations.
This duplication creates the illusion of rising numbers while obscuring the true scale of violence. In one county they analysed, an initial tally of more than 2,000 cases dropped to just 600 after validation. One survivor’s ordeal had been recorded as many as six times. Prof Judith says this fragmented reporting system reflects a government without coherent mechanisms for documenting or responding to violence. Her team has since recommended that the Ministry of Gender establish a unified reporting framework to end the chaos.
The situation inside shelters, she adds, is even more troubling. “These facilities operate without uniform standards or oversight,” she says. “The conditions in many shelters are poor, and the absence of regulation means they are run solely according to the capacity and judgement of their founders. Meanwhile, the State operates only two shelters. In a country grappling with thousands of GBV cases annually, having just two government-run safe houses is a national failure.”
But even these reforms, she warns, will not be enough if shelters continue to ignore a crucial component: women’s economic empowerment. A shelter can only provide temporary safety; true protection comes from equipping survivors with the economic tools to rebuild their lives. Without livelihoods, survivors often return to the homes and partners they fled because they cannot afford to live independently.
This cycle of escape and return contributes to rising femicide and repeat violence. She notes that in households where a woman cannot afford even basic necessities such as sanitary pads, her dignity and respect diminish, reinforcing her vulnerability. “A woman who is not empowered is treated like a child,” she says. “But empower her even a little, and she can take control of her life and her children’s wellbeing.”
The Cabinet Secretary for Gender, Hanna Wendot, had not responded to our queries by the time of going to press. West Pokot Governor Simon Kachapin, Chair of the Council of Governors Committee on Gender, promised to respond later; their responses will be highlighted once received.
Femicide is not murder
By the end of 2023, anti-SGBV advocates could no longer remain silent following repeated killings of women by their intimate partners, while calls to President William Ruto to declare femicide a national disaster went unanswered. In January 2024, they took to the streets to demand action and justice for murdered women. Still, nothing changed, and the President did not publicly address femicide. Undeterred, they returned to the streets at the end of the year—and this time, they were heard.
In 2021 alone, there were 706 femicide cases, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and UN Women—a number equivalent to the staff of a large enterprise. Just as a business collapses when it loses skilled workers, households dependent on the murdered women experience profound disruption—an unflinching illustration of the ripple effects of femicide. Despite this, Kenya continues to record femicide simply as murder, masking the true scale and nature of the problem.
Anna Mutavati, UN Women’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, warned that recording these killings merely as “murder” obscures the crisis. Speaking on 11 September 2025 during a UN Women forum on preventing and responding to GBV and femicide in Kenya, she stressed the need for accurate categorisation. “When we start counting 1, 2, 3, 4, and reach 100, then continue up to 700, these are women and girls losing their lives at the hands of loved ones or family members,” she said.
Hidden under general laws, the crisis goes unseen. “Just as intimate partner violence was once lumped together with common assault, femicide must now be separated to spotlight the relationships under which these women are being killed or abused,” she explained.
These were among the recommendations submitted to the national taskforce on GBV, including femicide, formed by President Ruto after the double anti-femicide protests. The taskforce has since completed its work and submitted its report to Deputy President Kithure Kindiki. The findings are yet to be made public.
Threatening conflict
But as momentum builds towards eliminating all forms of GBV, a conflict between state and non-state actors threatens the women and men they aim to protect. Civil society claims to have launched a new 15-page Kenya Police Medical Examination P3 Form, integrating the Post Rape Care (PRC) form. The PRC, filled by a medical professional after a head-to-toe examination, is a crucial court document. Without it, a healthcare provider cannot complete a P3 form. The P3 is jointly completed by healthcare providers and police as evidence that violence occurred, linking health and judicial systems.
According to Kenya’s National Guidelines on Management of Sexual Violence, the medical officer who fills the P3 testifies as an expert witness and must present the PRC form as evidence. Section 35(6) of the Sexual Offences Act allows all medical records relating to a survivor’s treatment to be used as court evidence.
Police—who issue P3 forms and serve as the starting point of GBV cases—say they first learned of the new form through Viu Sasa, meaning they discovered it through informal channels rather than official communication.
“People [NGOs] cannot just call a few people to a hotel, draft a document, and claim they have created a new form. Under whose authority?” says a senior officer in the Kenya Police Service.
“We are guided by statutes approved by Parliament and Standard Operating Procedures. We cannot have people dropping documents on the police and expecting them to follow them. I have received calls from survivors saying nurses have refused to fill the forms because they do not originate from the police. This policing of the police is something we are just seeing on Viu Sasa, and we can only watch as it continues.”
*Survivors’ names have been changed to protect their privacy.
