Femicide on the rise in Kenya in the last 12 months of 2019

Femicide is generally understood to involve intentional murder of women because they are women, but broader definitions include any killings of women or girls. This focuses on the narrower definition commonly used in policies, laws and research: intentional murder of women.

Femicide is usually perpetrated by men, but sometimes female family members may be involved. Femicide differs from male homicide in specific ways. For example, most cases of femicide are committed by partners or ex-partners, and involve ongoing abuse in the home, threats or intimidation, sexual violence or situations where women have less power or fewer resources than their partner.

Kenya is among the countries with the highest femicide due to unreported consistent domestic violence.

According to Akili Dada foundation, the following are among the reported cases that spiked women activists to stage a national disaster against femicide;

On Monday 13th May, Constable Pauline Wangari became the victim, stabbed to death by Joseph Ochieng, a man she had met on a social media platform. On 6th May, Ann Kanario was found dead at her house near the university she was attending. Police suspect, she was murdered by her boyfriend Obed Nyaga Njahi, who was found hanging dead in the house. Yet another young woman, Ivy Wangechi, was hacked to death with a machete on 9th April by Naftali Kinuthia, also a boyfriend, who later claimed that unrequited love had led to him committing the heinous crime.

In 2019, Kenya has experienced 82 reported cases of femicide, the unreported ones can add up to more victims. Women have been silently dying on the hands of their male lovers or even ex-lovers who have caused intense unexplainable pain to the closed ones of the victims.

One of the fundamental human rights according to the UN is right to life and no person deserves to die at the hands of another.

Most mainstream media have enormously contributed to public opinion as they justify the murder on reporting how the woman has been involved in love triangles, which eventually got her killed. Mainstream reporting can lead to more femicide if not rectified.

Femicide will be on the rise if we do not condemn the act collectively as humans and not while playing the gender card to justify that heinous act.

(By Maryan Hajir, Asal Media correspondent)