Why fighting femicide is so hard

She gathered abused women under one organisation called Beacon of Hope, perhaps with hopes of empowering them on how to stay safe from domestic violence. What teacher Emmy Mitei did not know is that as she was working on uplifting the lives of women cast in the same mould as herself, someone was planning her murder. 

And he managed to do it on the October 3, last year. The man entered Emmy’s mother’s kitchen, doused her in petrol and set her ablaze. She died days later at the Tenwek Hospital where she had been admitted at the Intensive Care Unit. 

Police later arrested her husband, Robert Tonui and he is now on trial for the murder of the woman with whom he had seven children. 

Read: Drama in court as Bomet man is confronted by his daughter 

The killing shocked the country, and teacher Emmy’s name was added to the list of women who have been killed in the country. 

More killed

But that list keeps growing. At least two women are reported to be killed every week in Kenya -- going by media reports.

Just two weeks ago, homicide detectives arrested three people in connection with the murder of Egerton University student Eunice Muthoni Njeri, whose body was found dumped in River Subuku, Njoro County, on December 7 last year. 

The university student had been strangled. Two of her friends, Diana Njeri Muthiomi and Tamar Wambora Njeru, and the husband to one of them -- Eric Maingi Mutuma were arrested in connection to the murder. 

The same week, the body of businesswoman Caroline Wanjiku Maina was found by herders in Paranai, Kajiado County three days after the family reported that she was missing. Investigations into her murder led to the arrest of her business partners.

Mr Edwin Otieno Odiwuor, Mr Samwel Okoth Adinda, Mr Stevenson Oduor Ouma and Ms Mercy Gitiri Mongo were arrested and held in custody for 10 days, after which the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) asked Kibera Senior Principal Magistrate Esther Boke to release Mr Oduor and Ms Mongo on a police bond.

The remaining two suspects -- Mr Otieno and Mr Okoth -- are still in custody after the Investigating officers applied to be allowed to detain them for 10 more days for them to conclude investigations into the macabre killing.

On Friday, DCI arrested two more suspects, including a high school student, who was found with a phone belonging to the deceased.

An autopsy on the body of the 38-year-old showed that she died of head injuries inflicted with a blunt object.

Investigations into her death had not been concluded when the homicide unit was once again called to investigate yet another murders of a woman and her son. 

Ms Charity Cherop Cheboi and her son Allan Kipng'etich Kiptanui, 8, were found dead in her bedroom in a house at Government Quarters on Jogoo Road, Nairobi. Both were found holding rosaries. 

In the same house was the body of a man -- Kevin Koech, who was a seminarian in Karen, Nairobi. Post-mortems on the bodies showed that mother and son died from suffocation resulting from their noses and mouths being covered. Koech, on the other hand, is believed to have died two days later of carbon monoxide poisoning from a jiko found next to him in the toilet.

No one had been arrested in connection to the killings of the three by the time this article was done.

Still, police are trying to establish the motive behind the killings of Ms Sarah Nafula, a flower farm employee in Naivasha; Ms Emmy Chemutai, an employee of James Finlays Company in Kericho; Ms Esther Njoroge in Laikipia; Ms Sharon Otieno in Homa Bay; Constable Pauline Wangari; Ms Ann Kanario; Ms Ivy Wangechi, and hundreds more women and girls in Kenya. 

Separate stats

The National Police Service (NPS), the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), the National Crime Research Centre (NCRC) have statistics on the number of homicides reported in the country at specific periods, but none of them has separated the statistics based on gender of the victims. Only statistics of the gender of the perpetrators of crimes are available.

This has made it hard for government and private institutions to formulate strategies to fight crimes relating to femicide. 

Independent data compiled by the Daily Nation indicates that at least 10 women are murdered in Kenya every month. Only a few of these murders are given publicity.

Akili Dada -- a non-governmental organisation that seeks to end femicide -- says young women are, more than ever before, being murdered under mysterious circumstances in Kenya. 

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated that a total of 87,000 women were intentionally killed in 2019. More than half of them (58 per cent) having been killed by intimate partners or family members. This means that at least 137 women across the world are killed by a member of their family every day.

More than a third (30,000) of the women intentionally killed in 2017 were killed by their current or former intimate partners. The UN agency states that even though men are the principal victims of homicide globally, women continue to bear the heaviest burden of lethal victimisation as a result of gender stereotypes and inequality. 

“Many of the victims of femicide are killed by their current and former partners, but they are also killed by fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters and other family members because of their role and status as women,” states a report titled ‘Gender-related Killing of Women and Girls’, released by the agency.

Motives

It adds that the deaths of women killed by intimate partners does not usually result from random or spontaneous acts, but rather from the culmination of prior gender-related violence. Jealousy and fear of abandonment are among the motives. 

Sociologist Ann Karanja says in Kenya, most killings of women and girls are committed by persons closest to them, including intimate partners, close business associates and family members. 

“It is hard to tell how many of these women are killed for what motive because in Kenya, data on gender-related killings are generally very scarce, making it a challenge to comprehensively analyse this phenomenon. Also, on the conclusion of investigations by the police, the reports are never really made public,” Dr Karanja says. 

She says killing by intimate partners, domestic violence and killing to conceal sexual violence such as rape are the most rampant forms of violence against women.

“In most cases, by the time the murders, especially those resulting from domestic violence happen, the victim will have tolerated many fights and thought they are normal,” Dr Karanja said, adding that even the police shrug off violence against women in homes and will rarely respond to distress calls, unless the victim is grievously harmed or murdered. 

Dr Karanja points out that female sex workers were also one of the most vulnerable populations, with nearly all serial perpetrators being their clients.

Victim blaming

As long as there are no records on how many women are killed at a particular time and for what reason, solving the problem will be hard, because it would be difficult to implement laws, says Dr Karanja, who also blames the media and social media for the increase in the number of murders. 

“Majority of Kenyan mainstream media has been reporting the news of these deaths from an overly sensational and patriarchal point of view aimed at disparaging the reputations of victims.

“The women in many of the cases, are often portrayed to have contributed to their own murders by being involved intimately with other men apart from those that killed them, or by failing to requite affection from their partners, she said, citing the case of a university student killed in Eldoret in 2019.

“Victims are also being blamed for being alone in their homes with their killers or for accepting monetary favours from them,” she says.