The Nancy Baraza-led Presidential Technical Working Group on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) including Femicide released its report this week. Though the report largely restates revelations already in the public domain, it nevertheless gives the country another opportunity for reflection.
In a country that constitutionally and socially flouts itself as family-centred, one of the report’s distressing aspects is the extent of intimate partner violence in the country. The report indicates that Kenya replicates global statistics on intimate partner violence. A 2021 WHO report indicates that globally, one in three women have been victims of violence, mostly emanating from their intimate partners.
The 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey indicates that 34 per cent of women have experienced violence at least once since they turned 15. The bulk of that violence is meted out by their partners.
According to the data, 71 per cent of women who have ever been married or have had an intimate partner were violated by the current husband or intimate partner while 19 per cent were assaulted by their former partner or husband. Men should note that on this issue, there is some gender parity.
The report indicates that 27 per cent of men have also been victims of violence with 63 per cent of perpetrators being their intimate partners. The incidents of gender-based violence show significant differentials across the country with the most notorious counties being Bungoma (62%), my own county Murang’a tied with Homa Bay at 54%. On the other end of the scale, Kericho (16%), Makueni (22%) and Nakuru (23%) display the lowest incidence. More depressing data relates to femicide which has steadily increased over time.
The National Police Service reports that between 2022 and 2024, 1700 women were killed, with the number of killings rising by 10 per cent. While police reporting does not classify such murder under a femicide indicator, deeper analysis of the data indicates that majority of these killings impacted women in intimate family relationships.
Of the women killed, 77% were murdered by persons known to them with 41% being husbands. Even more concerning, the bulk of male perpetrators were young people, with 66% of the perpetrators being between the ages of 18 and 35. This data is depressing.
Article 45 of our Constitution affirms the family as the “natural and fundamental unit of society and the necessary basis of social order”. The family is supposed to be a place of refuge, care and protection, providing crucial economic, emotional and social support. It is the place where safety should be guaranteed. And yet as the report states, the family has instead “increasingly become a site of hidden violence... a most dangerous site... particularly for women and girls”.
Where have we dropped the ball as a society? The report indicates that in Africa, gender-based violence within the family is generally compounded by legal pluralism, where formal laws coexist with deeply held cultural norms, some of which legitimise gender-based violence and economic inequalities.
Violence is compounded by instability in the family unit due to social change including the changing power balance as women rightfully become more empowered.
Social media has increasingly become a violence enabler. The report makes several proposals for statutory and institutional change. It however recognises that the societal changes required to tackle this depressing malady must involve the family as a core participant. It notes that as the primary social institution, the family holds cultural societal and normative power to reinforce or curtail harmful practices.
Recommended interventions include more focused awareness campaigns that target families with specific focus on the evolving nature of the family and the consequences of changes in roles and responsibilities. Such awareness campaigns should seek to challenge entrenched cultural beliefs and dismantle stereotypes that legitimise gender-based violence.
Critical actors in this process will include faith-based institutions, and educational institutions, particularly when children are in their teenage years when life’s values are caught. The mushrooming culture-based groups can also be a target so that they can promote respectful and responsible femininity and masculinity. But more critically, this issue needs to move from private chatrooms to public discourse that recognises that we have a looming disaster that, unless checked, will destroy society as we know it.
-The writer is an advocate of the High Court
