Nairobi, Kenya – While people around the world celebrate Valentine’s Day with flowers and chocolates, women in Kenya are grieving. Hundreds of people dressed in black held lit candles and red roses at a vigil to remember the more than 30 women killed in the country in 2024.
Wednesday's vigil in Nairobi, which included an impassioned call to action and musical performances, was organized by the Campaign to End Femicide Kenya, which includes more than 1,000 organizations and individuals. “Dark Valentine” vigils were also held in six other cities amid a growing number of high-profile murders across the country.
Many of the mourners in Nairobi are wearing shirts with the message written in Swahili: “Flowers on a coffin are not pretty.”
The vigil aims to pressure the government to address the movement's demands, including declaring femicide and violence against women a national emergency and establishing a commission to eliminate both.
Organizers said they planned the event on Valentine's Day to draw attention to gender-based violence and the “dark reality” of women being killed by their loved ones.
“A tragic victim of a woman murdered by her partner or family member [are] “It has become a sensational media headline,” the movement's statement reads.
According to End Femicide Kenya, the response to these murders by authorities and politicians is “focused” [on] “Victim blaming” and “filled with false advice urging women to be careful not to meet strangers.”
Statistics from the Africa Data Hub reveal that in two-thirds of women's murders in Kenya, the perpetrators are husbands or boyfriends, not strangers.
“Many of us end up asking, 'Where do I go when my home is a place where I might be killed?'” the Kenya Eradication Movement's statement reads.
The vigil follows a national march in January in which 20,000 Kenyans took part, demanding government action to prevent and prosecute sexual and gender-based violence and femicide. These are often ignored. Advocates continue to raise awareness and lobby for changes to the law, citing challenges to the administration of the criminal justice system.
tedious process
Njeri Migwi, executive director of Usikimui, an organization that rescues victims of gender-based violence, said they often cannot access justice due to various barriers, including a lack of awareness of their rights. That's what it means. Survivors also face police officers' frequent refusal to investigate intimate partner violence, “which they consider a nuisance,” she told Al Jazeera.
For individuals living in poverty, pursuing justice can also be costly, Migwi explains. These costs include using public transportation, obtaining medical documents, and potentially paying bribes (approximately 200 shillings, or $1.25) to obtain a police report.
As part of filing a police report, victims of sexual assault must undergo a physical examination from a doctor and obtain documentation confirming that they were assaulted. Obtaining this form will cost him 1,500 or 2,000 shillings ($9.80 or $13) depending on the survivor's location. According to Ushkimy, many survivors cannot afford this cost and are therefore unable to document the incident.
These costs involve survivors traveling back and forth between police stations and approved gender-based violence clinics or hospitals to fill out paperwork before police open a file to begin an investigation. This makes an already cumbersome process even worse.
“This process is very cumbersome…especially for people living in low-income areas and informal settlements. Most people don't know what justice looks like,” Migwi says.
But Tracy Rituma, legal adviser to the Kenya Federation of Women Lawyers, said the first step requires cooperation from the police. The federation provides legal aid services to women and trains authorities on how to appropriately respond to gender-based violence.
“I will ask [clients] If they call the police and they say, “I went to the police and they refused to give me any papers or documents.” [case] number. 'Without a police abstract, there's nothing we can do, even if we agree. [lawyers] I want to move heaven and hell,” Rituma told Al Jazeera.
Her clients report that police often disable and discourage reporting incidents of sexual and gender-based violence. She said, “You're pregnant now. What do you expect from this guy?'' [the accused] Do you support your child if he or she is in prison? ” the attendant may ask.
A police spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Once survivors have a police report, they must navigate Kenya's criminal justice system, which Rituma says is under-resourced, resulting in a backlog. During this time, survivors have lost hope and are refusing to testify in court or drop their charges because they, along with witnesses, are routinely threatened, blamed and shamed by the accused and other community members, she said. To tell.
In 2023, Kenya established 12 sexual and gender-based violence courts to specialize in these criminal cases. While the move has been widely praised, activists like Migwa say courts are already overwhelmed, are not gender-sensitive, and have no right to deal with trauma, which can harm survivors. It says it has not provided any information.
Representatives of the newly mandated court could not be reached for comment.However, their website states that the court's judicial officers are “trained in the complexities associated with SGBV” [sexual and gender-based violence], we are equipped to handle the complexities of such cases, including the needs of survivors, with the utmost sensitivity. ”
Rituma said many survivors are unaware of reporting requirements, including the need to seek medical attention immediately after an assault and prove their case “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Additionally, many survivors say their perpetrators pay bribes to avoid criminal charges.
“Some people advance through the justice system, but others fail,” Ritsuma said.
“We know the system”
Activists and analysts say there are multiple examples of a pattern of neglect and denial of justice for victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.
In 2013, a 16-year-old girl on her way home from her grandfather's funeral was gang-raped by six men, severely beaten, and then thrown into a 3.5-meter (12-foot) toilet.
The rapists were given weeks of mowing, sparking widespread outrage, protests and international condemnation, and ultimately three of the men were sentenced to 15 years in prison. However, both the verdict and the sentence were successfully appealed, and the men did not serve any jail time.
Connie Muulu has little trust in authorities after spending years seeking justice for the 2016 murder of her 29-year-old daughter Julie Sharon Musoni.
Muthoni was brought to the brink of death by her boyfriend, who allegedly beat her beyond recognition, according to Muura and numerous media reports. Muura rushed to the hospital, but when she arrived her daughter was already in the mortuary.
Since then, Muura has been demanding justice and relentlessly pursuing police after they told her her boyfriend had fled the country.
“I thought maybe the police helped him escape,” she says. “He didn't have time to get there.” [Uganda, where authorities claim he is] Because I reported it within hours. ”
Moula, who battles severe depression, prioritized his own health and stopped pursuing the case with the police. She has heard of cases in which survivors of gender-based violence and their families die by suicide out of despair. In response, she started a support group made up of 10 other women who were mothers of murdered children.
“We know the system,” Mura said. “When it comes to the abuse and murder of women and girls, we see police consistently ignoring cases.”
Famous women are also part of the sad statistics. When world-famous Olympic runner Agnes Tillop was stabbed and bludgeoned to death in 2021, her partner was the only suspect. She was awaiting trial after serving two years in prison, but was released on bail at the end of 2023 due to her good behavior.
In the wake of these incidents and the marches, memorials, and media attention surrounding femicide, advocates are trying to use the momentum to create change.
Migwi is one of them. She says Ushikimuyi is currently looking for legislators willing to introduce legislation that, according to the movement, would help address “the institutional tolerance that allows the roots of femicide.”