You Must Take Responsibility for the Femicide Crisis, Mr President

Femicide is the result of politics and policies, and so it is about time that you entered the chat, Mr President. But you need to come correct. Every woman and girl that is murdered because she is female, whose murder is not investigated, whose murderer – even when he is known – is never arrested, prosecuted, or incarcerated – every woman matters. Every murdered woman deserves your attention, Mr President, so it is infuriating to see you try to use the femicide of Rachel Wadeto as an opportunity to score cheap political points when you are responsible for the policies and politics that make femicide possible. You are the head of a government under which the crime of femicide almost always goes unpunished, where women are denied justice in life and in death. Every one of those deaths is on your head as the chief politician and policy maker of Kenya. 

Femicide is downstream of politics and policy. We have had a femicide crisis in Kenya since 2018-19. When Kenyan feminists, organizing under #EndFemicide #TotalShutDownKE, held our first protest in 2019 to sound the alarm, we were warning about failing government policies and a culture of criminal impunity that allows the men who are murdering women to avoid accountability, thereby creating incentives for further violence by men against women, since men know the state doesn’t take the rape, assault and murder of women seriously. At the time, you were Uhuru Kenyatta’s deputy, second in terms of political responsibility; you cannot claim ignorance. Almost a decade later, the femicide crisis has worsened. Under the #EndFemicide movement, Kenyan feminists have continued to organize and to advocate for greater attention to the public policies and resources required to address and eliminate femicide, but we continue to be ignored. 

This administration, and the one before it, has inexplicably defined femicide as a women’s issue, unimportant and undeserving of serious political and policy attention or action. Inexplicably, because while women are the victims, the perpetrators of this violence are men. Men murdering women with wanton impunity is what creates a femicide crisis. So, where is the Cabinet Secretary of Interior? Where are all the men MPs and Cabinet Secretaries? Why are men in positions of power silent when men maim and murder women? Where are the policies and programmes focused on reducing men’s violence? 

Mr President, your government policies have created an environment in which femicide is flourishing. We have an epidemic of male violence against women and girls, and your government’s policies and programmes are making it worse. The question then is very simple: Mr President, what policies are you willing to revise and or reverse to address the epidemic of male violence that has resulted in the femicide crisis? How are you adjusting policies to make femicide less likely and to eliminate it entirely? When your government raises the cost of fuel during a period when women are increasingly unsafe, you make it more likely that women are at greater risk of violence. Women who cannot afford the new matatu or boda boda fare to work or home walk even in the dark, putting themselves further at risk. 

How is your administration reducing the cost of living for Kenyans? When your administration raises the cost of fuel as it has done, it raises the cost of food, transport, education, etc. Your government policies and priorities are making Kenyans poorer and, more importantly, they are de-humanizing Kenyans. Your government policies display a reckless disregard for the dignity and the lives of Kenyans. When Kenyans tell you that they are dying under the economic and social policies of this administration, you tell us about (un)Affordable Housing and the bright, promising future. But of what good is a future that we will not be alive to experience? 

Femicide is downstream of existing government policies. Actually, addressing femicide requires urgent review and even the repeal of existing government policies. This is your responsibility, Mr President. There are three things you can do immediately to demonstrate your commitment to ending femicide. First, your government can immediately restore the cost of fuel to its previous – already high  prices. Second, you must address and change the culture in your political party UDA. Mr President, members of your political party UDA, have engaged in misogyny and demeaning behaviour towards women and girls without consequence. As the party leader of UDA, how are you holding Farouk Kibet, who asks women to dance and comments on their anatomy in public, and Karen Nyamu who sexualized and made inappropriate comments about a young girl in parliament, accountable? If such men and women are welcome in UDA, how can you claim to be addressing femicide when it is this culture of demeaning and dehumanizing women and girls that is the fodder for femicide? 

Regrettably, the report of the Technical Working Group (TWG) on Gender-Based Violence, including femicide, is focused more on fundraising and explaining and excusing government inaction. The Kenyan Feminist Collective Shadow Report provides a detailed critique of the TWG report, including its erasure of the #EndFemicide movement and the expertise of Kenyan feminists on femicide. The Shadow Report also details numerous ways in which the government can act with little to no additional funding to begin to respond to and prevent femicide; it is therefore an excellent place for your new Cabinet Secretary of Interior to start in identifying immediate actions, starting with monthly official data on femicide cases nationwide. Because, Mr President, the third way in which you can demonstrate your commitment to eradicating femicide is by firing the current Cabinet Secretary of Interior who has been a spectacular failure in terms of femicide and the general security of Kenyans. 

Every Kenyan murdered deserves justice, including those murdered by police bullets and in police custody. Every woman murdered deserves justice. Every woman and girl in Kenya has the right to security and the right to life and your government is failing in its responsibility to keep Kenyan women and girls safe and alive, and for that, Mr President, you need to demand the resignation of the Cabinet Secretary of Interior and the Inspecter General of Police. Mr President, following the unfortunate event in Kilifi, you immediately made changes to your security detail; Kenyan women deserve no less. We need new, credible, and more capable and responsible persons as the Cabinet Secretary of Interior and Inspector General of Police. 

The mass murder of women by men is an urgent national crisis, and your government needs to respond to it as such. It is not enough to issue press statements and go back to business as usual. Policies and politics must change. We must see a decline in new femicide cases, an increase in accountability for male perpetrators of femicide, and accountability for the delay and inaction that result in botched investigations and prosecutions. As Kenyan women, we will never accept the murder of women and girls as normal. Kenyan women will continue to ensure that femicide is a political issue – including in the upcoming 2027 general election – until the number of femicides drops to zero. We will continue protesting and demanding justice for murdered women and will not vote for a president, political party, or person who does not take the lives, security, dignity, and rights of women seriously.