Mr President, why the silence on femicide?
President William Ruto. He has been silent on femicide despite public uproar over rising cases.
What you need to know:
- During the Nairobi march, Nairobi Woman Representative Esther Passaris urged President William Ruto to speak against femicide.
- On Thursday, Government Spokesperson Isaac Mwaura had not even a single word on femicide, or gender-based violence or violence.
On Saturday last week, women and men in different parts of the country left their homes to go to the streets. Why? They were tired of counting the numbers of women being killed by men.
Some wore T-shirts with the message “End Femicide Now.” Others carried placards crying out: “We are not safe. Stop killing women.”
And they shared their photos on X under the hashtags #EndFemicideKE and #TotalShutdownKE.
From all the flurry of photos, two stood out: a man, probably in his 50s carrying a placard reminding Kenyans of the latest victims of femicide. It read: “Say their names: Starlet Wahu, Rita Waeni and Malkia.”
In another, a man in a red T-shirt was protesting, sandwiched by two children – a boy and a girl – presumably his children.
At the end of the call-to-action march, all the women and men wanted was no more killings of women.
They pleaded with the government to declare the problem a national emergency, thus driving the attention of everyone towards ending femicide, a man killing a woman on account of being a woman.
Did the government hear them?
Well, the government, through Interior Principal Secretary (PS) Raymond Omollo, Anne Wang’ombe (Gender and Affirmative Action PS), Beatrice Inyangala (Higher Education and Research PS), and John Ololtuaa (Tourism PS), has ordered short-stay accommodation owners to register their properties with the Tourism Regulatory Authority. Some of the murders have taken place in these facilities.
Further, on January 30, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations(DCI) posted on X that it was aggressively seeking to nab femicide.
That DCI director Mohamed Amin had vowed “to avail [himself of] all capability and resources at his disposal for the team to deliver on its mandate”.
The post indicated that Mr Amin had issued “firm instructions to a team of specially trained investigators from the DCI’s Homicide Directorate to diligently expedite investigations into serious sexual offences and murder incidents involving women.”
It also reported that between 2021 and 2024, a total of 94 cases of killings of women and girls were reported to the DCI and 65 suspects arraigned across the country in connection with the murders.
Mr Amin also urged the public to tip them off through hotline number 0800722203.
Does it click? Ninety-four women were killed within three years!
Kenya’s fertility rate of 3.4 children per woman translates into 31 mothers and 31 fathers in the country who cannot sleep in peace because their daughters were brutally killed. In the worst case scenario, they cannot work because they are mentally disturbed.
Yet six days (by 2pm on February 1, 2024) after the peaceful march, the President is loudly mute. Neither has the Deputy President said a word. Nor have the first and second ladies, both of whom poise themselves as voices of women’s and boys’ empowerment.
Similarly, we didn’t see photos of Gender and Affirmative Action Cabinet Secretary Aisha Jumwa, or PS Wang'ombe, joining the march.
Nairobi Woman Representative Esther Passaris urged President William Ruto to speak against femicide.
“We need the President to speak to it. We need the President to understand that the families of the women who have been brutally murdered have got so much trauma.”
On Wednesday, I reached out to Government Spokesperson Isaac Mwaura to establish why the silence. He responded on Thursday via WhatsApp, saying: “I will be speaking about this in our weekly presser today (February 1, 2024).”
Shockingly, not even a single word in his statement had a mention of femicide, gender-based violence (GBV) or violence against men and women.
When journalists posed the question, his response was rather not serious as it ought to be. He did acknowledge that women are suffering the most. But he had some advice for them: “Stop the love of money and being gullible.”
He added: “Let it not be just about the government; let parents speak with their children too.”
Ending GBV makes economic sense, which is often ignored.
In 2016, National Gender and Equality Commission estimated that the country loses Sh46 billion annually to GBV, which is equivalent to 1.1 per cent of Kenya's gross domestic product.
The amount is equal to the funds the government is seeking from the Trade Development Bank to cushion the economy from exchange rate pressures. By stopping femicide, the country would be saving money, which would be diverted to realising its development agenda.
So, Mr President, where are you? Have the cries of the Kenyan women and men reached you?
