What would it take to keep all Kenyan women and girls safe?

Parents and guardians walk outside the Utumishi Girls Academy following the deadly fire in Gilgil, May 28, 2026. [AFP]

With 16 Utumishi Girls Academy students dead and 74 injured, the nation reels from another horrific, tragic incident. As feminists are forced to organise another public memorial this coming Madaraka Day, what would it take to keep all Kenyan women and children safe?

Public, parental, and policymakers’ attention has been recently gripped by the seemingly endless testimonies and reports of femicide, pedicide, and missing children since Missing Children’s Day (ironically also Africa Liberation Day, 25 May 2026). The Kenya Gender Ministry Directorate of Children Services informs us that 10,581 children went missing between January 2025 and March 2026. This is a staggering 23 children a day.

Proportionately, Kenya ranks among the highest globally for missing children. We are behind South Africa (one child every five hours), the US and UK with their robust reporting systems, and conflict zones like Sudan and the DRC. Japan, Finland, and Switzerland report the lowest rates.

According to the Gender Ministry, parental abandonment, abductions, trafficking, and structural violence of poverty drive these statistics. While nearly 4 out of 5 children are eventually found and reunited with their families, one child never comes home. The stories have been heartbreaking. A Pokot boy abducted for a harmful ritual, a child’s body found in Nyeri pit latrine, a Thika secondary student found after 5 weeks, and a minor rescued en route to Tanzania, among others. Sadly, we have to learn another deadly word, pedicide, from the Greek and Latin words, paidos (child) and caedere (to kill), respectively. Public anger mounts over the government’s failure to decisively act on the GBV Taskforce report submitted in May 2025.

Readers will recognise the snail’s pace being taken to tackle one of Kenya’s gravest crises. Since the handover to the President in November, given current trends, more than 200 women, including gospel singer Rachel Wandeto, have been killed. What can our 47+1 governments, communities, civic and business organisations do to reverse these terrible stories?

Our State bears the primary responsibility for promoting and protecting all human rights for all human beings. Inaction, paralysis, or delay in responding to this national crisis leaves the State vulnerable to the charge that it is failing its constitutional responsibility. The silence and inaction by the President and 47 Governors is deafening, especially as the Baraza GBV Taskforce has made its recommendations. To restore trust, the Presidency and Gender Ministry could unbundle the recommendations and report publicly on specific progress on legislative, budgetary, and operational recommendations.

Community and residential associations, businesses, and feminist organisations must also step up their game. Public memorials and street demonstrations like the ones planned for Monday have their place in stirring the national conscience and offering solidarity to the fallen and those at risk. However, without helplines, safe spaces, and survivor-led networks leading preventative public awareness campaigns, we won’t bring the rates down.

We must redesign our homes, places of worship, work, and entertainment as “zero-tolerance” zones. We can train each other how to safely intervene in situations of harassment and violence. Every neighbourhood, street, court, and village needs a focal point, not just to respond when needed but to proactively introduce feminist family values. Our creative artists need to paint, sing, and perform to challenge pervasive, harmful gender norms, victim blaming, and spark skilful non-judgemental dialogues. Ending the deep-seated entitlement some feel they have over other people’s bodies may seem impossible, but as freedom writer Micere Githae Mugo reminded us, I imagine it is not.

If Kenyans learned to respect a simple ‘no’ from either a child or an adult and chose to walk away instead of lashing out at someone weaker, we could cut these horrific statistics in half. As the EndFemicide movement gathers concerned citizens at Nairobi’s Jeevanjee Gardens on Monday at 9 am, their rallying cry, “Not Yet Madaraka for the nation’s women and children,” must echo into every home.

On this Madaraka Day, let’s dedicate our freedom to ending the scourge of missing children, femicide, and pedicide. Lives depend on it.