Issue No. 59

Kenya's Escalating Femicide Crisis 

2024 will be remembered not only for Kenya's political upheaval and waves of youth-led protests but also for bringing the femicide crisis to the forefront of national attention. Record numbers of Kenyan women have been killed, with victims spanning all ages - from infants to the elderly – typically at the hands of intimate partners and relatives or, in some cases, complete strangers. Just this past weekend, 78-year-old Catherine Waceke became yet another victim when her body was discovered in a septic tank in her home. Authorities have now arrested a 21-year-old male labourer on suspicion of the murder. 

In one of the most harrowing incidents, authorities recently discovered the remains of a woman's bones in a paper bag outside Nairobi's Langata Cemetery on 31 October. The brutal discovery of Deka Abdinoor Gorone's body came just days after the discovery of three other female victims—a mother, her 19-year-old daughter, and her 12-year-old niece—whose remains were scattered across the city. Victims in 2024 have straddled class, urban-rural divides, and all ages in Kenya, with several highly-publicised femicide cases also involving female athletes and their male partners in rural areas. The latest was the murder of Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei by her former partner in western Kenya in September.

The numbers are staggering. In a 30 October press briefing, Deputy Inspector General of Police Eliud Lagat reported that law enforcement had recorded 97 femicide cases across the country over the past three months— an average of nearly one woman murdered every day. Lagat emphasised that investigations are ongoing and called for collective action to "eradicate the scourge of femicide." Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) head Mohamed Amin, however, also present at the briefing, attempted to downplay the gendered nature of the crisis, stating that "the majority of cases investigated were purely criminal, with no intent to specifically target women." Yet President William Ruto, speaking during Deputy President Kithure Kindiki's inauguration, addressed the rising tide of femicide with concern and urged the DCI and other investigative bodies to act decisively and tackle the crisis. 

President Ruto's remarks followed a mounting public outcry from both human rights organisations and citizens, calling for femicide to be declared a national crisis. The Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya (FIDA) has condemned what it calls the state's "laxity" in addressing femicide, warning that this inaction effectively "aids and abets" such crimes. Feminist activists, meanwhile, have been at the forefront of confronting Kenya's femicide crisis, with the January 2024 #EndFemicideKenya movement sparking one of the largest waves of social activism in the nation's recent history. Kenya's vibrant feminist movement has a longstanding history of using digital platforms to push for democratic rights and social justice, and its approach to the femicide crisis has been no different.

On the flip side of this has been the toxic rise of Kenya's 'manosphere' in recent years, with harmful stereotypes of masculinity increasingly proliferating online. These increasingly influential sub-cultures straddle multiple societies and are actively opposed to feminism, instead pushing narratives of 'respectable femininities.' Violence and even murder have been framed as justified for women deemed to transgress these standards. Social media influencers such as Andrew Tate and @amerix-- the Kenyan equivalent-- have exploded in popularity, selling a heady and toxic mix of money-making schemes, self-help guides, and world ideologies that straddle both left and right. In Kenya, this has appealed to the high numbers of unemployed or underemployed young men caught up in these misogynistic sub-cultures online. Consequently, increasingly extreme views on gender relations and women amongst young men have become normalised, in large part because of the widespread access to social media amongst impressionable boys and teenagers.

Victim blaming remains prominent in Kenya's femicide discourse, with tropes around 'stranger danger,' morality, clothing choices, and 'sponsor culture' weaponised to imply that women are complicit in the violence they suffer. This narrative shifts focus onto women's behaviour, rather than confronting the structures that enable such violence—societal misogyny and the pervasive sense of entitlement over women. Restricting women's and girls' lives through these harmful narratives only perpetuates the cycle of violence, obstructing the dismantling of these systems of abuse. And there is a broader, urgent need to re-examine the patriarchal norms and practices that uphold gender inequality across Kenya. These traditional views not only support the violation of women's rights but also perpetuate a cycle of discrimination, commodification, and dehumanisation of women and girls.

Nor does the failure to tackle the femicide crisis in Kenya exist in a vacuum. Rising incidents of abduction, excessive force, and extrajudicial killings by government security agencies—often met with limited state accountability—reinforce the perception that certain lives are deemed expendable and have badly eroded trust. Repeat promises by successive governments and police officials to tackle the scourge of gender-based violence have failed to deliver. For instance, though police gender desks were established in 2004 to enable women to report violence and speed up investigations, only half of police stations have them. Domestic violence remains all too common, with over 40% of married women experiencing it, according to a 2022 Kenya Bureau of National Statistics Report. The lack of timely and appropriate intervention by police in these cases allows behaviour and violence to escalate. Yet of the 30 gender-based violence cases FIDA has raised this year, not a single one has resulted in an arrest.

Moreover, though the country is not unique in this, there are immense backlogs in the Kenyan courts with gender-based violence and murder cases. Prioritising and establishing gender-based violence-specific courts would go some way in removing dangerous individuals from the streets and removing the impunity many enjoy. Currently, though, such persistent inaction by law enforcement does little to inspire confidence in the safety, rights, or dignity of Kenyan women, particularly when the state acts decisively in other areas. Joining up senior government officials' rhetoric and everyday action is urgently needed, with a troubling disconnect still existing with those responsible for safeguarding Kenya's women and girls. But tackling the femicide emergency in Kenya necessitates a whole-of-society approach, from schools to police to the judiciary. It is long overdue.

By the Horn Edition Team