No need for blame games: Empower all to end femicide

It's no longer in dispute that femicide has become a national disaster and we can no longer afford to continue burying our heads in the sand!

We can rant and rave, pontificate, preach, pray, yell, curse, and dance around in blame games or set aside funds to mitigate the disaster, until cows come home! But that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface!

Women are being massacred at a rate that has never been witnessed before. Or, maybe, the media have just woken up and females have been on the chopping block since time immemorial! Whichever the case, the country (read leaders) has to wake up from its self-induced slumber and put a stop to the killings! It can't be business as usual!

Read: Why Kenya's patriarchal society continues to enable femicide - and how we must fight back

Oh, what a pity! We spent the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence with more ranting and raving! Should we repeat the mistake in 2025? Certainly not! Let the powers that be give the nation a special New Year gift – a blueprint for battling with Femicide! From where I sit, the nation should try to, at least, formulate a blueprint for reversing the tread? It'd be criminal for the nation to continue dilly-dallying about femicide!

Now, isn't it high time we formed a committee composed of sober social scientists, thinkers and commoners, and locked them up in a room, with a clear instruction: Get a solution to the social malady or else...?

Here is some food for thought for the committee to ponder. To begin with, it should list down the whys and wherefores! But, I'd humbly request them to desist from listening to the feminists, male chauvinists, religious zealots and fanatics! This is a job for only the levelheaded! Here is my two cents’ worth on why females are being butchered right, left and centre.

Read: 97 women killed over last three months, but DCI says trend is not gender-based

If you asked me, it has nothing to do with ritualistic/serial killings or ‘just because they are women!’ No! They're slaughtered because of ‘revenge,’ a monster called love, freebies, lack of empowerment, ignorance, drugs, life on the fast lane, religion/culture, corruption, sick politics and/or temporary insanity!

Revenge?

Let's go down memory lane, shall we? A guy drives all the way from Nairobi to Eldoret, carrying a brand new axe! Mission? To fix his fiancée. Apparently, the fiancée had refused to invite him to a party he had financed! The dude felt cheated, misused and betrayed! And so, the lady had to die! A poser to the committee: If the victim had been a man, would the dude have murdered him?

Monster called love?

Love is a foreign ideology and a dangerous commodity! Where I come from, love didn't exist before the colonisers landed! Today, it's fashionable to fall in love. However, the disease afflicts females more than males. Many girls are conditioned by societal norms – social media, peers, music, novels, soaps and/or movies – to 'seek' love! There's an ‘open’ desire to be in love! Unfortunately, jackals are on the prowl! To the jackals, love doesn't exist! But they spoil the naive damsels with ‘love’, nonetheless! It gets to a point where the damsel decides to take the romance to the next level, and so clings, like a leech, onto the jackal! But the jackal is eyeing another damsel or two! Sometimes, the jackal has to flee himself from the damsel by eliminating her! On the other hand, some sick men can't handle rejection – they kill the victim!

Freebies?

Some cultures/religions have tuned girls into believing that they were created to be pampered, and that they're subservient to men! Fatal mistake! So, some females feel entitled to free ‘everything’ from men, and/or worship men – even when the female is well-endowed or exposed to GBV, she sticks to the abuser! Some evil men take advantage of the situation! They shower the woman with gifts and love, just to get an opportunity to kill or drag them to a secluded place to harvest their organs! I don't think female organs are more precious than the male ones. But it's easier to coax a damsel into a dungeon than a man!

Lack of empowerment?

This makes people poor, vulnerable and miserable, thus, making them lose confidence and self-esteem, leading to unhappy people and poor decisions. And the evil men out there take advantage of women by exploiting them: turning them into drug mules, ‘sex toys’ and unwilling organ donors! A miserable poor man can easily kill!

Drugs?

It's so sad that females are being lured by drug lords into peddling. But first, they've to be hooked to the substance! It's easier to manipulate an addict! And when the deal goes south, the woman becomes the sacrificial lamb! Some drug lords double as organ merchants! Men and women doing drugs are susceptible to mood swings/depression, thus can slaughter a person just for the kicks! Drugs, basically, turn most people into zombies!

Life on the fast lane?

Social media has put pressure on some women to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, opening them up to manipulation by sponsors. And when she achieves her goals, she decides to abandon the sponsor! Or, sometimes, she pushes the sponsor too far – the sponsor has other damsels he's taking care of – necessitating him to quieten the sponsee, permanently!

Corruption?

Believe it or not, corruption has created unstable humans, families and society! It has brought about high cost of living and frustrations, thus making the majority live on the edge! This has created delirious characters who, technically, have lost their minds! A sick mind is a dangerous weapon! 

Temporary insanity?

This is hard to swallow. But we are all mad – bottom up! But some are madder than others! Some of us (walking the streets, driving big cars and holding high offices, are candidates for madhouse) are so mad that they require little provocation to freak out! And in that state, one can butcher his family and shout about it from the rooftops!

Remedies?

To stop/reduce femicide, there's an urgent need to empower all and sundry; to tweak the curriculum right from primary school to the highest level, to thoroughly tackle sex education, substance abuse, human rights, social media – the good, bad and ugly, ‘sponsorship’, marriage, divorce, separation, property ownership, relationships and madness – signs and symptoms; sensitise the masses to the hidden traps set on their paths via freebies, love, drugs, careers, religion, comradeship, sponsorship, job-hunting, leadership, freedom, growing up and ambition; take quick and swift action against murderers, human/organ traffickers, child molesters, drug barons and GBV perpetrators; tackle mental health issues; instal corruption-free leadership, and, only elect/put sane people in decision-making! So many maniacs make major decisions in this country! And the ‘mad decisions’ have greatly hurt the populace, making the majority lose it!

The writer is a teacher, author and poet