Nairobi had 86 cases of sexual assault, says new report

Police officers beat up a woman during an Opposition rally along Manyanja road last month. [File, Standard]

At least 86 cases of sexual and gender-based violence were either reported or documented in Nairobi in the run up to the 2017 election and after, says a new report.

According to the report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) dubbed ‘Still a Mirage’, 62 per cent of the sexual violence cases were perpetrated by police while 38 per cent by civilians.

The reported further indicated that 35 people were killed in the months of September and October.

This adds to previous data where the organisation recorded 57 cases of people killed during the elections.

“Among those killed were three minors, two women while the rest were men aged between 18 and 50 approximately. All the victims except, for two, succumbed to gunshot wounds mainly to the head and chest,” said KNCHR Chairperson Kagwiria Mbogori.

‘Still a Mirage’ is the last, in a series of researches documenting human rights accounts of the presidential poll.

“The commission is extremely worried by the emergence of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) as a weapon of subjugation in the country’s political contests. We are in the process of compiling a comprehensive account of all the cases,” said Mbogori.

Political contests

KNCHR said Sexual and Gender Based Violence is a heinous crime that must not be allowed to take root in our country.

“Rape was the most common form of SGBV and the commission documented cases where some of the women who had been raped got pregnant or infected with sexuallytransmitted diseases  or both,” said the KNCHR chair.

The commission called on the Government to remove its reservations on Article 14 (2) (c) of the  Maputo Protocol so that women who are raped, especially in conflict situations, are not subjected to the additional trauma of being required to carry pregnancies arising out of the same. Under the said article, States Parties are called upon to take all appropriate measures to ‘protect the reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where the continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the mother or the foetus’.

KNCHR also documented 20 bodies in Kisumu, which were taken to the morgue between August 8 and 25 at the height of the first round of post poll violence.

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