Women trained to fight crime in slum homes

Enumerators for a planned mental health baseline survey at three major slums in Nakuru and Naivasha during a training in Nakuru last week. [Loise Wanjiru/Mt Kenya Star]

For ages, safety and security issues have been a preserve of men but a civil organization in Central Rift Valley has taken the unbeaten path to use women to fight crime at three slum areas in Nakuru and Naivasha towns.

The organisation that has been working in Kwa Rhonda and Kaptembwa slums in Nakuru and Karagita in Naivasha initiated a project dubbed Wamama na Usalama through which women were trained on monitoring crime patterns, reporting and referral mechanisms on Sexual and Gender Based Violence and human rights violations.

This has reduced crime in the slums and many cases have been reported and prosecuted owing to the partnership between the community and the police.

Midrift Human Rights Network which mainly works on issues peace, safety and security also capacity built the women’s capacity on community policing with an aim of integrating them in Community Policing Committee.

The organisation Executive Director, Joseph Omondi says the decision to largely incorporate women in safety and security was informed by statistics of women and children affected by crime in the community or at the household level.

“Women have unique insights on crime because mostly they are the victims, the care givers and they stay longer around the homes thereby making it easy for them to detect characters and study behaviours,” he said.

Omondi says through the project women were empowered to voice their suffering because even those who were courageous enough to report did not know how to package the evidence while others were shy to testify in court.

“For a long time wife battering was normalized and some women even thought it was a measure to prove love but after the training on forms of human rights violation, more women are coming out and it is easier to relate their predicaments to a fellow woman who advise on the next cause of action,” he said.

Lydia Achieng who was trained by Midrift and is now a chairlady of Kaptembwa Community Policing Committee said many violations against women and children had been normalized because people lacked knowledge.

She said the civil society also linked them with the police and built trust and bond which was initially lacking.

The project in the three slums was initiated in 2014 due to increased criminal activities and cases of GBV which included rape, defilement, incest, sodomy and wife battering.

Building on the successes, the organisation is preparing to conduct a pilot baseline survey on mental health of SGBV survivors in the three slums and women will be its drivers.

Omondi observed that while there were concerted e? orts to give survivors medical and legal help, there was little done on their mental health thus leaving most of them traumatized and depressed.

He said the NGO with the help of Danish Institute Against Torture (Dignity) has commenced training for enumerators who will carry out a baseline study on the mental health of Sexual Gender Based Violence survivors.