Nairobi, Kenya – Whereas folks around the globe mark Valentine's Day with flowers and chocolate, Kenyan girls are in mourning. Lots of of them wore black clothes and held lit candles and crimson roses in a vigil in honor of greater than 30 girls who had been murdered within the nation in 2024.
Wednesday's vigil in Nairobi – which featured passionate calls to motion and musical performances – was organized by the Finish Femicide Kenya Motion, a collective of greater than 1,000 organizations and people. “Darkish Valentine” vigils had been additionally held in six different cities amid rising instances of femicide, which have captured nationwide consideration.
“Flowers aren’t lovely on a casket,” says a message in Swahili on a shirt worn by most of the mourners in Nairobi.
The vigilantes intention to stress the federal government to handle the calls for of the motion, which embody the declaration of feminicide and violence towards girls as a nationwide emergency and the creation of a fee to eradicate each.
Organizers say they deliberate the occasions on Valentine's Day to attract consideration to “the darkish actuality” of gender-based violence and ladies killed by those they love.
“The tragic variety of girls killed by their companions or members of the family [are] changed into sensationalized media headlines,” learn an announcement from the motion.
In response to Finish Femicide Kenya, the responses to those murders by the authorities and politicians “fireplace [on] sufferer blaming” and are “stuffed with ill-informed recommendation urging girls to watch out to not meet strangers”.
Figures from the Africa Knowledge Hub reveal that husbands and boyfriends – not foreigners – are answerable for two-thirds of the murders of ladies in Kenya.
“It leaves many people asking: 'The place can we go when the home is the place… I could possibly be killed?'” the assertion of the Feminicide Motion of Kenya says.
The vigilantes observe nationwide marches in January by which 20,000 Kenyans participated to demand authorities motion to forestall and prosecute instances of sexual and gender-based violence and femicide, which they are saying are sometimes uncared for. Advocates proceed to lift consciousness and foyer for legislative change in mild of what they are saying are challenges in navigating the prison justice system.
A tedious course of
In response to Njeri Migwi, govt director of Usikimye, a corporation that rescues survivors of gender-based violence, they usually can not entry justice attributable to numerous obstacles, together with lack of expertise of their rights. Survivors additionally face a frequent refusal by law enforcement officials to research intimate associate violence, which they “think about harassment,” she informed Al Jazeera.
For people dwelling in poverty, pursuing justice may also be costly, explains Migwi. These prices embody taking public transport, acquiring medical paperwork and probably paying bribes to acquire a police report (about 200 shillings, or $1.25).
As a part of submitting a police report, survivors of sexual assault should receive a bodily examination from a physician and a kind confirming that they had been assaulted. This way prices 1,500 or 2,000 shillings ($9.80 or $13) to acquire, relying on the placement of the survivor. In response to Usikimye, many survivors are unable to pay this payment and thus can not doc their instances.
These prices exacerbate an already cumbersome course of that requires survivors to shuttle a number of occasions between a police station and permitted gender-based violence clinics or hospitals to fill out paperwork earlier than the police can open a file to start an investigation. .
“The method may be very troublesome… particularly for folks in low-income areas and in casual settlements. Most individuals have no idea what justice seems to be like,” says Migwi.
Step one, nonetheless, requires the cooperation of the police, in accordance with Tracey Lichuma, a authorized adviser on the Kenya Ladies's Legal professionals Federation, which supplies authorized help providers to girls and trains authorities on easy methods to reply. in an acceptable option to gender violence.
“I ask [clients] in the event that they report back to the police, and say: “I went to the police, and so they refuse to present a kind or [case] quantity.' With out a police summary, there’s nothing that may be performed, even when not [lawyers] I need to transfer heaven and hell,” Lichuma tells Al Jazeera.
Their purchasers report that the police usually invalidate and discourage them from submitting reviews in instances of sexual and gender-based violence. “Now you’re pregnant. How are you anticipating this man [the accused] to assist your youngster if he’s in jail?” an officer might ask.
A police spokesman didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
As soon as survivors get a police report, they need to navigate Kenya's prison justice system, which, in accordance with Lichuma, is under-resourced, leading to backlogs. Throughout this time, he says, survivors lose hope and, together with witnesses, are routinely intimidated, blamed and shamed by the accused and different members of the neighborhood, so survivors refuse to testify in court docket or drop the fees. .
In 2023, Kenya commissioned 12 sexual and gender-based violence courts, which deal completely with these prison instances. Whereas the transfer has been extensively welcomed, activists like Migwa say the courts are already overwhelmed and aren’t gender-sensitive and trauma-informed, which may hurt survivors.
A consultant for the newly commissioned courts was not obtainable for remark. Nonetheless, its web site says that judicial officers within the court docket have been educated “on the intricacies associated to SGBV. [sexual and gender-based violence]together with the wants of survivors and are outfitted to deal with the complexity of such instances with the utmost sensitivity.”
In response to Lichuma, many survivors aren’t conscious of the reporting necessities, equivalent to needing to be medically examined instantly after an assault and show their case “past an affordable doubt”. Additionally, many survivors say that perpetrators bribe their manner out of prison costs.
“There are those that transfer ahead with the justice system, and there are those that have failed,” says Lichuma.
“We all know the system”
There are various examples of a sample of neglect and denial of justice to victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, say activists and analysts.
In 2013, a 16-year-old woman strolling dwelling from her grandfather's funeral was raped by six males, severely overwhelmed and left for lifeless after being thrown right into a 3.5-meter (12-foot) latrine.
The violators had been ordered to mow a garden for just a few weeks, sparking widespread outrage, protests and worldwide condemnation, which finally led to fifteen years in jail for 3 of the boys. Nonetheless, the decision and sentences had been each efficiently appealed, and the boys didn’t serve any jail time.
Connie Muuru has little religion within the authorities after spending years in search of justice for the 2016 homicide of her 29-year-old daughter, Julie Sharon Muthoni.
In response to Muura and quite a few media reviews, Muthoni was taken to the hospital as she was on the verge of demise by her boyfriend, who had overwhelmed her past recognition. Muura rushed to the hospital, however when she arrived, her daughter was already within the morgue.
Since then, Muura has sought justice, relentlessly pursuing the police after officers informed her the boyfriend had fled the nation.
“I suspected that the police might need helped him escape,” he says. “I didn't have time to get to that place [Uganda, where authorities claim he is] as a result of I reported it in just a few hours.
Battling extreme melancholy, Muura prioritized his well being and stopped following up with the police. She has heard of instances by which survivors of gender-based violence or their members of the family die by suicide out of desperation. In response, she began a assist group of 10 different girls, all moms of murdered youngsters.
“We all know the system,” says Muura. “We see that the police are nonetheless ignoring instances in terms of abuse and homicide of ladies and ladies.”
Well-known girls are additionally a part of the unhappy statistics. When world-famous Olympic runner Agnes Tirop was stabbed and overwhelmed to demise in 2021, her associate was the one suspect. Whereas awaiting trial after two years in jail, he was launched on bail on the finish of 2023 attributable to good conduct.
With instances like these and on the heels of marches, memorials and media consideration surrounding feminicide, advocates hope to harness the momentum to enact change.
Migwi is certainly one of them. She says Usikimye is at present searching for a lawmaker keen to introduce a invoice that, in accordance with the motion, would assist handle the “institutional tolerance that enables femicide to take root.”
