Total shutdown protestors in Nairobi. [PHOTO: WOMAN KENYA NETWORK]
Feminists are calling upon President William Ruto to declare Femicide in Kenya a National Emergency and a threat to national security. The women in Kenya are also requesting the Interior CS Kindiki Kithure and Gender CS Aisha Jumwa to promptly and decisively tackle this crisis.
The surging Femicide cases in Kenya have sparked outrage with rights groups asserting that it’s now a national crisis. Femicide Count Kenya recorded 152 killings last year, the highest number of cases for the past five years.
According to a report titled Homicide Country Data released in 2022 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 706 cases of femicide, or 2.64 cases per 100,000 women, were recorded in Kenya in 2021.
This year has not been any different as the number of femicide cases continues to rise. GBV activist and Co-founder Usikimye, Njeri Migwi asserts that “What we are looking at as femicide is a culmination of years of neglect in gender-based violence. We can’t term femicide as anything else but a national crisis…”
Women’s rights activists called for a nationwide protest at Jevanjee Garden that commenced on Saturday, January 27, 2023, at 10 am.
The peaceful protests occurred in 11 counties including, Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Machakos, Nyeri, Nakuru, Eldoret, Homabay, Turkana, Kilifi, and Kisii.
The protests were attended by feminists, People Living With Disabilities, Human Rights Defenders, Women survivors of Gender-Based Violence, Torture and, Human Trafficking as well as Women who work in the informal sector.
