Tusemezane Magazine - September 2014

Incest shrouded in a conspiracy of silence

Girls in Kuria not safe from the cut

Teenage girl’s life cut short by police bullet

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A MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY PEACE INITIATIVE KENYA (PIK) PROJECT

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Defender turned perpetrator Justice eludes women in Seme sub-County as rogue chiefs mete out corporal punishment Page 8-9

PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

About Peace Initiative Kenya

P

eace Initiative Kenya (PIK) is a three-year USAID funded project working towards the prevention of and response to gender based violence (GBV) in Kenya. The project aims at supporting prevention of Gender Based Violence and improving the current GBV response framework at the national and county levels.

Project Objectives: •

Strengthen county engagement in preventing and responding to GBV

•

Increase access and utilization of GBV services through community outreach and other awareness raising efforts

The PIK project is implemented by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), together with local partners; Coalition on Violence against Women (COVAW), Rural Women’s Peace Link (RWPL), Sauti Ya Wanawake – Pwani, Health Care Assistance Kenya (HAK) through GBV hotline 1195 and African Woman and Child Feature Service (AWC).

The project covers nine counties: Taita Taveta, Kwale, Mombasa, Kisumu, Migori, Kisii, Uasin Gishu, Nandi and Trans Nzoia to improve GBV prevention, as well as increase access and utilization of GBV services through community outreach and other awareness raising efforts.

At the national level, the PIK project works closely with the National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC), Ministry of Devolution and Planning, specifically the Directorate of Gender, Anti-Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Board and other stakeholders to support the Government in creating an enabling environment for coordination of GBV prevention and service provision.

Project Goal:

Regent Court, along Argwings Kodhek Road Contact the Chief of Party Phone: +254 726082140

Page 4 Nandi County: Overwhelmed with defilement cases Page 5 Protecting family name makes handling GBV in Kisii a huge hurdle Page 6

Email: PIK@rescue.org Facebook: GBV Service Providers

Incest shrouded in a conspiracy of silence

Africa Woman and Child Feature Service

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Nairobi Baptist Church Court, Green Lane, off Ngong Road Nairobi Phone: +254 20 2720554, +254 722 209510 Email: info@awcfs.org

Giving birth to girls, a shame among the Gusii Page 12

Website: www.awcfs.org Twitter: @AWCFS Facebook: African Woman & Child

Kenya launches FGM and child marriage hotline Page 13 Dialogue to mitigate domestic violence

IRC Team

Managing Editor:

CONTRIBUTORS

Mary Mwendwa

Jebiwot Sumbeiywo

Jane Godia

Abjata Khalif

Nick Oluoch

Ben Oroko

Omar Mwalago

Joyce Muchena Simon Panyako

Programme Manager:

Ben Ombati

Robert Wanjala

Valine Moraa

Ruth Omukhango

Benson Shamala

Teryani Mwadzaya

Carol Korir AWC Team

SUB EDITOR:

Duncan Mboyah

DESIGN & printing:

Managing Director:

Odhiambo Orlale

Faith Muiruri

Vieve Omnimedia

Arthur Okwemba

This production is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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International Rescue Committee

To improve national and county-level gender-based violence (GBV) service delivery systems and policy implementation.

Editorial Team

•

Contact Information

Contents

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Katy Migiro

INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE

AFRICAN WOMAN AND CHILD FEATURE

PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

rape is treated seriously “as no girl will ever lie that she was raped as the act itself is considered shameful. However, the girl or woman who has been raped will never be brought before the elders to defend herself.”

The official says It is the clerk of the Maslah who explains to the elders what happened to the girl before they decide on the compensation to be given to her family.

“They prefer the traditional way of doing things because they argue that statutory courts will normally release the perpetrator and the victim’s family does not get anything in return,” he says.

According to Khalif: “The chair of the Maslah will then refer to past cases of rape and how they were determined before settling on how to resolve the case at hand.”

Elders meet under a tree to listen to disputes in Hadado area of Wajir. Among the Somali, most disputes are solved through the traditional courts. Picture Abjata Khalif.

He explains: “The chair can bring in new compensation brackets in terms of the number of camels. If the previous case had asked for five camels, he can say that for the present case the perpetrator’s clan will pay 20 heads of camel.”

Dynamics around ‘traditional courts’ a barrier to justice

By Jane Godia

G

ender Based Violence (GBV) remains a vice where power relations are perpetuated leaving women and girls suffering the most.

While men and boys are equally violated, women and girls suffer disproportionately from effects of GBV.

However, when it comes to accessing justice, women and girls are often left out in the alternative dispute resolutions, otherwise known as ‘kangaroo or traditional courts’ which determine what form of justice the survivor will get and the form of punishment the perpetrator will be accorded.

action that is expeditious, efficient, lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair.”

It goes on to state in Article 50 (1): “Every person has the right to have any dispute that can be resolved by the application of law decided in a fair public hearing before a court or, if appropriate, another independent and impartial tribunal or body.”

However, according to preliminary findings of an audit report conducted by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in partnership with USAID says: “Traditional instruments of justice greatly disfavour women and children, as most perpetrators of GBV get away with light sentences.”

While the Constitution of Kenya 2010, recognises alternative dispute resolution methods, kangaroo or traditional courts remain the greatest impediment in the war to end violence against women and girls.

The audit report also notes that: “Most of the traditional courts are male dominated and decisions taken tend to favour men. Taking cases of incest or defilement to statutory courts is largely prohibited in most cultures and cases are resolved by rituals with no due consideration for the victim.”

This despite the Constitution in Article 47 (1) clearly indicating that: “Every person has the right to administrative

The audit findings further states that

The dynamics around such courts, which vary from one community to another, make it a challenge, especially for women and girls who are survivors of psychological , physical and sexual violence.

The preliminary report indicates that there is a very low reportage of genderbased-violence cases across the country, and this becomes a major cause for concern as it translates to continual suffering for majority of GBV survivors and lack of information on the extent of the problem to enable decision-makers respond.

Khalif says that because camels are expensive, the clan will have to go around collecting the animals until they get the number required.

most cultures consider it an abomination to report sexual gender based violence cases to outsiders who include the police.

According to Abjata Khalif, Executive Director Pastoralist Journalists Network (PAJAN), in Garissa County, the kangaroo or traditional courts, otherwise known as Maslah, are the ones that determine issues affecting clans, communities and families.

“Rape and domestic violence as well as other petty offences are determined by the Maslah courts,” says Khalif. He explains: “Issues of rape and domestic violence are not publicised among the Somalis because they are associated with shame.”

Khalif notes: “Every village has a Maslah elder and traditional clerk who compiles cases at the village level. It is the clerk who hands over the case to Maslah elders who will then decide what to do at court meetings that usually take place late in the afternoon due to the harsh weather in most parts of Northern Kenya.”

The dynamics exhibited by the Somali in Northern Kenya are replicated across the country. All Somalis, whether in Kisumu, Mombasa, Kwale, Kisii, Migori, Uasin Gishu,Trans Nzoia, Nandi or Taita Taveta, will have their cases determined through the Maslah courts, because that is what is culturally acceptable to them.

However, due to the expenses involved there is no second time around for a serial GBV perpetrator.The clan will hand him over to the offended group to do with him as they please should there be repeated rape incidences.

The preliminary findings of the audit report conducted by the International Rescue Committee in partnership with USAID that was carried out in the nine counties of Mombasa, Kwale,Taita Taveta, Kisii, Kisumu, Uasin Gishu,Trans Nzoia, Nandi and Migori, reveals that in cases of rape, incest or defilement, taking a relative to court is considered an abomination in most parts of the country.

The report notes that people resort to traditional instruments of dispute settlement mechanism such as village elders. These instruments are observed as having contributed to Gender Based Violence in that perpetrators have in most cases walked away with light sentences, thus denying victims justice.

The report also notes that culturally communities want to deal with defilement and incest at the community level. Some elders force GBV survivors to settle disputes out of court at a fee. People also tend to shy away from giving evidence in the courts on matters cultural, preferring to use elders in settling gender based violence issues, while in case of child defilement, parents and community members hide the victims.

Khalif says that among the Somali,

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PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Overwhelmed with defilement cases Nandi County elders remain an impediment to accessing justice for GBV Survivors.

The audit report also notes that the health sector has abundant supply of drugs such as post exposure prophylaxis. The health guidelines are clear that genderbased-violence services ought to be free, yet all health services have hidden costs in the County.

D

So far, as per the report, the youngest defilement survivor recorded by the Courts within Nandi County is a twoand-half-year-old. Other notable cases still pending in Kabsabet Law Courts include a chief who defiled a 13-year-old girl and a head teacher who defiled eight children in a 12 year period.

The vice, according to the report, has been fuelled by the strongly held notion within the community that sex with a virgin cures HIV. In addition, some community members in Nandi County believe that having sex with a young girl keeps an old man young and agile.

The situation is compounded by the culture of settling gender-basedviolence cases at the police station with perpetrators securing their freedom by selling a cow or two.

“Communities prefer out of court settlements (Kipkaa) as court services are very expensive for many gender-based violence clients,” says the report.

The audit report points out that the family is the main decision-making organ as regards to court seeking justice and where the survivor moves to court without

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Lack of female officers in most police stations prevents some survivors from reporting GBV cases.

According to the report, pro-bono services are weak; legal aid programme is inadequate and some magistrates are not sensitised enough on international laws and best practices.

By Faith Muiruri efilement has been noted as the most prevalent type of gender based violence in Nandi County with stunning revelations that there are between five to seven cases of defilement reaching the courts every day.

Preliminary findings of a Gender Based Violence(GBV) audit report conducted in Nandi County by International Rescue Committe (IRC) in partnership with USAID indicates that more than half of GBV cases coming to courts are defilement. The report notes that perpetrators are mainly respectable people in the village among them chiefs and teachers.

It notes that there is an urgent need to send the prosecutors from the office of Director of Public Prosecutions to help in prosecuting sexual gender based violence cases and children matters which present special challenges.

The Kapkangani Administration Police Post in Nandi County where a mentally ill woman was reported to have been defiled by a police officer. PHOTO: BENSON SHAMALA.

family support, cases are frustrated through compromising of witnesses, disappearance of evidence and changing of witness testimony.

The Nandi culture also works against the court system with elders giving light sentences and pocketing inducements from perpetrators. In the long-run, they perpetuate impunity in the settlement of disputes in the entire County.

However, the main challenges include inadequate forensic investigations, poor drafting of charge-sheets, contaminated or expired exhibits, as well as the missing link between perpetrators and victims. Consequently, the courts use circumstantial evidence to convict as opposed to direct investigative evidence.

However, most of these cases do not attract justice as poor forensic services make it difficult to prove the sexual gender based violence cases beyond any reasonable doubt.

“There are many acquittals on technicalities such as incomplete investigations. Children matters pose special challenges for prosecutors due to lack of survivor protection. Advocacy and support is missing leading to poor court attendance,” notes the preliminary report.

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In addition, prosecutors lack technical skills on children and sexual GBV matters as gender desks and child protection units are few and are mostly managed by untrained officers.

Further, there are many gaps in police response to gender based violence that range from charges of between KShs500 and KShs1,000 for P3 forms each, to lack of equipment and infrastructure for forensic services such as operational laboratories, lack of Government Chemist services, gender desks, as well as facilities for establishing child support units.

Statement taking by the police is inefficient with capturing of data using old technology and clients have to wait since there is only one occurrence book. The police also fear that when computers are introduced, it will be easy to manipulate the data.

“These concerns are misplaced.

Computers do infact improve accountability by introducing several channels of authorisations on a need to access basis.There is no clear content upon which police prosecutors are trained,”says the report.

The report observes that there are prosecutors in Kapsabet town who have allegedly never been trained in the past 25 years.

“When medics charge between KShs1,000 and KShs 2,000 for filling the P3 forms, they are accused of corruption and non-enforcement of existing regulations. However, in reality they have very limited options; the Government has not provided any funds to support court appearance by medics.The result is that, if the fee was removed, doctors would simply not attend courts.This would place a GBV survivor in a more precarious situation than when they pay the fees for court attendance.

Meanwhile, Nandi County Assembly has not prioritised legislation of Gender Bills because of the firm belief that the legal framework is sufficient; the remaining work is implementation of the laws.

Survivor safety and protection has not been prioritised by the County Government and there is no GBV Bill on the floor of the Assembly.

“The Bills in the house such as Alcohol Regulation, Early Childhood Development, and the one targeting people living with disabilities lack gender orientation.There is no house committee on GBV or gender.The budgeting process has been closed to many stakeholders,” the report notes.

The audit report further indicates that women do not have leadership positions in any of the house committees while Members of the County Assemblies do not have sufficient skills on GBV or gender issues. Nandi County also lacks a GBV coordination framework.

However, the County requires a GBV coordination strategy to involve all stakeholders in the sector and ensure that civil society organisations and development partners are operating in partnership with the County government.

PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Widow disinheritance and the associated violence which lead to a woman being sent off from her late husband’s property are common.

Another emerging trend of violence in Kisii County is the practice of burning those suspected to be witches. Witchhunting and witch-burning is culturally construed and executed and the basis of labelling someone a witch is a male construction; and seldom portrays men as witches.

“Male supremacy is denoted by a culture that routinely violates the girl child, more so by people who are supposed to protect her,” notes the preliminary audit report.

Kisii Level Five Hospital. The hospital lacks a gender violence recovery centre making management of GBV a challenge. Picture: ben oroko

Protecting family name makes handling GBV in Kisii a huge hurdle and acts as a reference point.

By Duncan Mboyah

K

isii is one of the 47 Counties in Kenya where cases of violence against young girls are on the increase because of the some practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which is... is part of a woman’s rite of passage Despite the high number of such cases, the County lacks a Gender Violence Rescue Centre (GVRC), leaving most victims to rely on the centre at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Referral Hospital in Kisumu town which is many kilometres away.

This is according to preliminary findings of a GBV audit report conducted by the International Rescue Committee in partnership with USAID. According to the report, lack of a Gender Violence Recovery Centre compounds the situation that is faced by women and girls in the region because then specialized Gender Based Violence (GBV) services are compromised.

The report indicates that sexual crimes within the family such as defilement, rape and incest are not easily reported because of the need to protect the family name.

These cases are instead referred to the cultural cleansing mechanisms dealing

“Domestic violence is highly prevalent and women remain the common target, although there are cases where wives batter their husbands,” an audit report conducted by the International Rescue Committee in partnership with USAID. with such cases.

Religious leaders are noted to command a lot of respect as the church is the voice of reason in the campaign against defilement and FGM in the area. The office of the chief is noted as the closest expression of Government authority; it handles many GBV cases

The preliminary audit report indicates that HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing personnel who are more available in lower level facilities are able to provide trauma counselling in the absence of psychosocial support providers. At another level, the community health workers in Kisii with basic counselling skills come in handy in their community sensitisation efforts.

“Domestic violence is highly prevalent and women remain the common target, although there are cases where wives batter their husbands,” notes findings of the audit report.

It indicates that there are three to four defilement cases per week that include incest, early and forced marriages as well as rape and child trafficking.

Female genital mutilation, coerced incest, early pregnancies, forced and early marriages, witch-hunting, vigilante violence and denial of economic rights to women more so widows are the most common types of gender based violence in Kisii County.

Arguments floated as to why FGM is still being practiced in the region indicate the misconception men have that if left uncut, “a woman gets amorous, misbehaves and brings dishonour to the good name of the family”.

Sexual assault is common and forms 60 per cent of all gender based violence patients attending Nduru Level 4 Hospital in Southern Kisii, most of these are not reported to the police and, therefore, do not get to court.

To help reduce incidences, the preliminary report indicates, other actors are complementing the role of the Government in providing public sensitisations through open air public meetings. Among these is the Coalition on Violence Against Women, an implementing partner of the Peace Initiative Kenya (PIK) Project which works with community organisations on the ground.

These organisations and individual actors follow up to ensure the police take the right action including arrest of those who perpetrate violence.

Through the sensitisation programmes, women are empowered and wives are encouraged to report abusive husbands .

At the community level, GBV cases are handled by the council of the elders that is more acceptable because they are cheap, quick and they apply traditional standards.

Interestingly, FGM related cases are common, yet there are no cases pending in any of the local courts despite the practice having been outlawed and being a human rights violation.

Incredibly, for the very first time in Kenya’s history, the National GBV Policy is being established and it is currently being reviewed under the Ministry of Devolution and Planning.

With such initiatives including the Peace Initiative Kenya project working with the communities at the grassroots to end gender based violence, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Peace Initiative Kenya is working in Kisii County among other eight counties to create an enabling environment for coordination of GBV prevention.

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PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Incest shrouded in a conspiracy of silence

Among the Gusii, incest remains a taboo topic that has negatively socialised members from the community to believe that the vice is not a crime worthy of any action. Ben Oroko explores the circumstances under which incest is swept under the carpet.

J

ane Kemunto*(not her real name) from Boigesa village in Sameta Sub-County in Kisii County and a mother of two, is an accomplice of a secret incest arrangement between her husband and their two unsuspecting daughters.

No longer able to bear children, Kemunto faced a bleak future as she did not have sons to enable her claim her husband’s legacy according to the Gusii customary laws which regard a boy-child as a heir-apparent of the parents’ land and property.

After running out of options in her search for a baby boy to adopt to save her marriage from divorce, Kemuntoo and her husband conspired in an arrangement where he would be having sex with her two daughters to try and see if one of them would bear him a baby boy. The agreement between them was that if the daughters succeeded in giving birth to son, the couple would adopt him instead of the man marrying a second wife.

Kemunto’s husband’s action is described as incest. Incest is described as sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other. It is a form of GBV and the crime of having sexual intercourse with a parent, child, sibling, or grandchild.

True to Kemunto’s wishes, her husband sired a baby boy with one of their two daughters, something they celebrated, though in secret. However, with time their secret spilled out as neighbours started questioning as to how their daughter could have given birth to a baby who closely resembles the grandfather, yet her mother came with her and theirs was no direct blood relationship except that of step-father and step-daughter.

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Things turned out for the worse, when the daughter gave birth to a second born, a baby girl, who also resembled the grandfather. That is when village elders convened a meeting over the matter, during which Kemunto admitted that she had no option but to allow her husband to sleep with her daughters as part of the agreement that he will not take a second wife to displace her.

Kemunto’s husband also admitted that they had agreed secretly with the wife that he takes over his step-daughters and, if anyone of them gave birth to a baby boy, they would adopt the child and allow the daughter to be married off elsewhere instead of him going in for a second wife.

The village elders, warned the couple against engaging in such secret deals of sexual violence offences and ordered them to have the two children sired by the man revert back to their daughter, failure to which they would eject the woman from the family and have the daughter officially recognised as the man’s second wife.

Taboo

Kemunto’s story is not unique. There are several similar stories of incest taking place in Kisii County that are never reported as Gusii culture and customary laws treat the vice as taboo topic not to be discussed in public. The young unsuspecting girls are subjected to sexual violence and defilement by their biological or step fathers in the name of protecting their mother’s marriage, title and status.

Culture of silence among women and the general membership from the Gusii community regarding incest, subjects majority of the survivors to untold sexual assault and agony as they are brought up knowing that reporting

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Kisii County Assembly in session. The Assembly needs to find ways of dealing with the high cases of incest that are being faced by children in the county.

Photo Ben Oroko.

such sexual violence cases to immediate neighbours or law enforcers is a disgrace to the community and family.

According to the Sexual Offences Act 2006, any male person who commits an indecent act or an act which causes penetration with a female person who is to his knowledge his daughter, granddaughter, sister, mother, niece, aunt or grandmother is guilty of an offence termed as incest.

The Sexual Offences Act 2006, states further that, even attempting to have intercourse with a relative amounts to attempted incest and the accused is liable, upon conviction, to a term of imprisonment of not less than 10 years.

Blame

Kisii County women member of the National Assembly Mary Sally Otara, blames the culture of silence among the Gusii for perpetrating the vice in the area.

Otara reminds area residents that according to the Christian faith incest is an abomination as well as a crime according to the national laws and international conventions to which Kenya is a signatory.

“Contrary to the conventional wisdom that the nuclear or extended family was a safe haven of love, girls and women still face the threat of sexual violence from the very people who are supposed to protect them,” Otara says.

According to Coalition of Violence Against Women (COVAW) community activist, Pastor David Amenya, from South Mugirango Borabu in Kisii County,

women were negatively socialised by the community’s outdated cultural beliefs on matters relating to sexual offences against them or their daughters and are made to believe that such vices are not supposed to be reported to the chief and/or police for action.

Amenya notes that women from the area hardly report sexual offences cases affecting them or their daughters for fear of exposing their families to public shame, while others fear losing their marital status if they dare report their husbands’ sexual crimes to the authorities and law enforcers.

“Many women from the Gusii community suffer in silence over incest cases involving husbands and daughters but they cannot dare report such vices to the police for fear of being stigmatised, beaten or chased away,” says Amenya.

It is such acts of violence that Peace Intiative Kenya project in which COVAW is an implementing partner seeks to ensure are brought to zero levels. Some of the PIK activities include providing legal and psychosocial counselling to survivors.

According to preliminarily findings of a GBV audit conducted by International Rescue Committee (IRC) in partnership with USAID, sexual violence targeting the girl-child was identified as the most common type of GBV in Kisii County.

The report indicates three to four cases of defilement are reported in Kisii County every week. It notes that incest is one of the common forms of GBV that is never reported to the police in the County.

PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Giving birth to girls, a shame among the Gusii cherished in Gusii community, married men who sire male children out of wedlock are forced to look for them when their wives only give birth to girls.

By Bob Ombati

W

hile the birth of a baby is expected to be a joyous moment for family, relatives and community at large, the case is not so in some communities.

As mothers-in-law whose daughtersin-law have given birth to a boy child celebrate, those who bring forth the girls live under fear and uncertainty as they ponder on the stability and future of their marriages.

According to Gusii culture, it is the eldest son who breaks the ground for digging the grave of his father or mother.

Tradition does not allow daughters to do this and it is considered a taboo for a girl to break the ground for her mother’s or father’s grave.

To conform with tradition, a deceased man is buried on the right side of the house while a woman is interred on the left.

In the traditional Gusii community, women who give birth to daughters only are treated with contempt. Such cultural beliefs is leading couples to have many children looking for a son.

While the shame hangs on the woman who bears girls, the man is not spared. Men whose wives have only given birth to daughters are humiliated in public and in community gatherings they could be the last to be served food and, worse, they are not allowed to talk before men with sons.

Couples who are faced with traditional practices such as son preference which is practised among the gusii community tend to feel worthless and the ridicule and stigma from family and community members drives them to suffer from emotional violence which manifests itself as anxiety,chronic depression,Post Traumatic stress disorder

In the traditional Gusii culture, a man who has many wives and children is usually revered and given leadership position while those in monogamous unions are regarded as too weak to lead, a cultural trend which forces men to marry more women to command respect beyond their villages.

Embittered and humiliated men often vent their anger on the innocent wives whose crime is giving birth to daughters.

Most of them often spend the whole day drinking traditional brew known as busaa, only to return home at night and beat to up their wives under the guise of stupor.

In most cases the wives and their daughters are forced to sleep in the kitchen while the husband sleeps alone in the bedroom, cursing the woman for the daughters who have made him worthless in the eyes of villagers.

In Gusii, which lies in Kisii County, one of the Counties in which Peace Initiative Kenya (PIK) is implementing its

A pregnant woman whose husband dies is not allowed to step on the grave lest she miscarries and that is the first question elders ask before they embark on funeral preparation.

“We inherited that from our forefathers. It cannot be changed.Those who dare change it will be cursed” says Araka Matundura, Abagusii Culture and Development Council chairman.

Embittered women in the grassroots demonstrating against gender based violence that has been on the rise in parts of the country. In Kisii, giving birth to girls remains a cause for domestic violence.

Photo AWC Correspondent.

activities, elders regard the violence meted on wives and the girl child as normal, but caution men not to use excessive force which could cripple the women or that could end up being fatal.

While the family members are often reconciled after such violence, the physical and psychological scars left in the hearts and minds of the survivors remains immeasurable.

The cycle of violence is untold as women who have borne sons and have endured domestic violence, ensure that their sons are well taken care of, praying that when they become adults they will be able to tame their husbands.

During a public conversation at Mwata market, Kisii South Sub-county, Kisii County, organised by Coalition on Violence Against Women (COVAW), an implementing partner under the Peace Initiative Kenya project, women admitted openly that they had experienced violence at the domestic and/or family levels, at one time or another.

Fifty-year-old Jane Kerubo, a mother of two daughters and four sons was a victim of domestic violence for 20 years before her grown up sons came to her rescue.

Kerubo says her husband would always look for excuses to beat her up, but the trend changed when the sons

intervened and rescued her from his cruel hands.

“When my sons grew up they started intervening whenever he raised his hands on me. He reduced the frequency of the beatings until he finally stopped,” says Kerubo.

Kerubo notes that her daughters would run away whenever their father was beating her. He would only stop when her sons appeared and prevailed upon him to stop his beastly, senseless and inhuman actions.

Unlike Kerubo, Josephine Monyangi had to endure suffering in her husband’s hands for long until she gave birth to a boy.

Monyangi says her five daughters, aged five to 20 years, would flee wailing whenever her husband started beating her, prompting his brothers-in-law and villagers to intervene.

“Girls are fearful. They only cry helplessly unlike boys who can act even if they are young,” says Monyangi.

She says that most women survivors of gender violence are orphans and keep quiet for the sake of their children.

There is also the issue of their brothers not willing to accept them back at their parents’ homes, forcing them to endure double suffering.

To show how the boy child is

Ghost marriages are common, especially to men who sire male children outside wedlock and do not marry the women.

When the men die and there is no son to bury them, community members look for the women who they sired a male child with to persuade them to return the boy to bury his father.

Matundura notes that in some cases it becomes difficult to get the son, if the woman was married and settled elsewhere. “They fear the co-wives who might not readily accept them owing to the women’s natural jealousy to cowives.”

There is a recent case of a man who married two wives at different times, sired sons with one, but separated and remained with the one who bore him a daughter.

When the man fell sick and died, his brothers went for the two sons he sired with the other woman who was already married and settled. They came, buried the father but their mothers was conspicuously absent.

It emerged that the man had been supporting them secretly despite them living elsewhere.

The widow seemed perturbed psychologically and her effort to secure a burial permit for her late husband bore no fruits as family members kept it securely.

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PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Defender turned pe Justice eludes women in Seme sub-County as rogue chiefs mete out corporal punishment The assistant chief used oboka-rao (a whip made from a hippopotamus skin) that left her body covered with injuries.

A medical report shows that Onyango was a victim of assault.

By Jane Godia

A

nondescript location along the Bondo-Kisumu highway, Kombewa centre is the host of the District Commissioner’s officer. The sign post indicating the presence of the Seme District County Commissioner’s Officer has a mission statement engraved on it reading: “To ensure peace and stability.”

However, peace and stability is only available to the board, but lacks in practice as women and men of Seme sub-County suffer in the hands of their chiefs and assistant chiefs where they are forced to undergo corporal punishment in public and in the presence of their children.

While a community is supposed to respect women, being the mothers of their children, some communities exercise gender power roles that leave women’s status to be demeaned and trivialised, as if they are worthless human beings.

This is the sad story of women from Seme in Kisumu County where justice remains elusive to women who seek redress from the chiefs.

It is a case of the defender turned the perpetrator for the women.

A recent visit by the media to Seme sub County organised by Coalition on Violence Against Women, International Rescue Committee and African Woman and Child Feature Service, under the Peace Initiative Kenya project, brings journalists to the home of Celine Atieno Onyango. In all purposes and intent the home is an indication of poverty as within it stands a mud walled, grass thatched hut in which Onyango lives with her husband and their four children.

While they are basically a happy family, events in the recent past have left them feeling low and intimidated after she suffered a thorough beating in the hands of the local assistant chief on allegations that she had stolen from a woman whose farm she was weeding.

While the chief had all the rights to

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“The chief beat me up until I fainted at the public baraza. It is a neighbour who came to collect me from where I had lost consciousness and brought me home before calling my husband who then took me to hospital,” says the peasant farmer who regained consciousness while at the hospital.

The medical report indicates that she sustained injuries in the upper limb and in the gluteal (muscles that make up the buttocks) region.

He said he would cane my genitalia and was asking me to lie down facing up so that he could cane me properly to my death,” Christine Auma, a nursery school teacher

go and check Onyango’s home for the stolen goods, which were estimated by the accuser to cost KSh20, 000, he did not. Instead, the administrator subjected the mother of four to a thorough beating in a public baraza that left her faint and with serious injuries.

In addition to the humiliation and injuries, Onyango was ordered to do community service for 14 days, though there was no evidence indicating that she had committed the offence.

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“We are poor and could not even afford to pay the KSh240 the hospital was asking for. The doctor also told me to pay KShs2,500 for the P3 form, but my husband did not have the money,” explains Onyango who then could not follow up on the case for justice to take its full course.

In the same village, Christine Auma, a nursery school teacher revealed that she was also a victim of the chief ’s wrath after she took a dispute she had with another villager to the chief ’s baraza.

Though she is the one who was offended, and reported the matter, teacher ended up being whipped by the chief in public.

“The chief did not allow me to talk and tell my side of the story, but he allowed the woman who I had an issue with to speak,” says a bitter Auma.

Without bothering to hear both sides of the story, the chief started whipping the teacher as he uttered unprintable words.

“He said he would cane my genitalia and was asking me to lie down facing up so that he could cane me properly to my death,”says Auma, who was forced to limp away from the beating as she could not stand the humiliation.

Efforts by the media to get a response from the chiefs and assistant chiefs from Seme sub-County bore no fruits as they

Celine Atieno Onyango outside her house w thorough beating in a public baraza that left

left the meeting convened by Coalition on Violence Against women (COVAW) before journalists could talk to them.

But when reached, Seme District County Commissioner, Gilbert Kitiyo, claimed he was not aware that the chiefs were unilaterally instilling corporal punishment to members of the public contrary to the Constitution and laws.

The administrator went ahead to

PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

erpetrator

Chiefs and their assistants attending an official function recently, some of them have gone against their oath of office by taking the law Into their hands. Photo awc corrspondent

this Act.

While the chiefs are the nearest in administration that people can turn to in terms of solving domestic issues including domestic violence, those who are opposed to the institution of chiefs in the country, argue that many chiefs are a burden to the public, are bossy, corrupt, autocratic, dictatorial, tyrannical, authoritarian and antithetical to democracy as it is understood today.

where she lives with her husband and four children. She was subjected to a t her with serious injuries. Photo jane godia

accuse the media of victimising the chiefs, saying: :“Anyone who administers corporal punishment is a criminal and no chief is above the law”.

The media visit was organised through the Peace Initiative Kenya project, a project of International Rescue Committee supported by the USAID that is aimed at improving national and county-level gender-based violence (GBV) service delivery systems and policy implementation.

The project is using a strategy to support and lobby the County governments for the establishment and maintenance of structures for social service delivery such as GBV service committees and directing specific financial resources towards GBV prevention and service

provision. The project targets women and men as partners in GBV prevention, and stakeholders in leadership positions as change agents in the fight against GBV. The National Government Coordination Act, is an Act of Parliament, and is set to establish an administrative and institutional framework for coordination of national government functions at the national and County levels of governance. It provides for the establishment of an administrative and institutional framework at the national, county and decentralised units to ensure access to national government services in all parts of the country.

The chiefs are in charge of locations while assistant chiefs are responsible for sub-locations and they all operate under

Yet despite all these accusations, over 70 per cent of Kenyans solve their disputes and problems through chiefs’ informal courts. Chiefs work with council of elders as mediators of violent conflict and disputes, and their popularity in society depends on their leadership and integrity qualities.

According to the Chief ’s Act revised edition 2012 Chapter 128, the duty of every chief or assistant chief is to maintain order in the area in respect of which he is appointed, and for such purpose he shall have and exercise the jurisdiction and powers by this Act conferred upon him over persons residing or being within such an area.

While the Chief ’s Act does not specify if in the hearing of disputes the accused and accuser need to pay a fine , in Seme sub-County both have to pay KSh1,000 each before the chiefs can arbitrate.

During the media visit, some residents revealed that the chiefs went as far as confiscating mobile phones of suspects who were convicted and had no money to pay the fine.

penalty will only be paid by those who have disobeyed orders. The Act states: “Any person who, without lawful excuse, disobeys or fails to comply with any lawful order issued or given by a chief or assistant chief under this Act shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding KShs500 and in default of payment, to extra mural penal employment for a period not exceeding 14 days.

According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission, on family and petty disputes, the mediation role that chiefs have played has earned them the tag ‘kangaroo courts’ because it is often alleged that decisions favour the rich, are un-enforced where they favour the poor and both parties end up making an unreceipted ‘payment’ for the service.

Elsewhere, Esther Ajuma, a resident of Kombewa, says that the chief ’s baraza should not only be venues for discussing crime.

“We should also be able to discuss our location’s development in these barazas and not just use them for instilling punishment,” argues Ajuma.

She adds: “There is nowhere that the Constitution of Kenya 2010 says chiefs are allowed to whip citizens.”

According to Margaret Omondi, COVAW’s coordinator in Kisumu County, residents of the sub-County do not know of the citizen’s power that should allow them to intervene to stop the corporal punishment being meted out on them.

The Chief ’s Act stipulates that

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PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

that over a half of all girls who enrol in primary schools in Kuria region fail to complete their primary education because of FGM.

Speaking in Migori County, Meresa Tingo, chairperson of the Education Committee at the Migori County Assembly said it was unfortunate that the outdated practice still contributed to massive drop out of girls from schools.

“It is unfortunate that a number of our girls get married off soon after facing the knife. This is because of the false assumption of attaining womanhood after the cut,”Tingo said.

She noted that FGM is one of the cultural practices that still retard the education of the girl-child among members of the Kuria Community and that it has to be eliminated if the issue of girl child education is to be achieved.

Isebania, Migori County border point into Tanzania where many schoolgirls are taken to for the banned Female Genital Mutilation by their parents. Photo Nick Oluoch

Girls in Kuria not safe from the cut a non-governmental organisation involved in the fight against female genital mutilation, says more girls are crossing over secretly to undergo the rite in Tanzania despite efforts that have been put in place to stop the practice.

By Nick Oluoch

E

very year, hundreds of girls from Kuria East and West constituencies in Migori County cross over to Mara region of Northern Tanzania to undergo Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

The reason for this being that the practice has been outlawed in Kenya as it is deemed to be a human rights violation as well as violence against women and girls.

Most communities that practice FGM are hesistant in stopping it because of the cultural beliefs and traditional practices surrounding the act.

Among the Kuria community in Migori County, it is argued that FGM was given to them by God and that is why it is not practiced by the neighbouring Luo community. This line of argument has made it difficult for advocates against FGM to make any positive inroads in the war against it.

Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act 2011 recommends up to seven years in jail or a fine of KShs500,000 for anybody found guilty of taking part in the practice.

According to anti-FGM activists working in the region, the large number of

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“We are concerned that despite the reduction in the number of the girls undergoing the rite in the country, most of these girls are crossing over to Tanzania to undergo the cut,” says Mugo.

“We will only be able to win this war when all leaders come out in the open and talk against it.

Dennitah Ghati, Migori County Women Representative. girls crossing over to Tanzania every December to be cut have now reached a point where it can no longer be ignored.

Speaking in Isebania town along the Kenya-Tanzania border, Cess Mugo, Project Manager with Education Centre for Advancement of Women (ECAW),

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She says many parents force their daughters to cross over to Tanzania because that country does not have strong laws against the vice.

Mugo is asking organisations working in Migori County to partner with their counterparts in Tanzania to work jointly if they want to see female genital mutilation brought to zero levels.

“We have to ensure that we work with organisations across the border if we are to win this war.This will ensure that those who take part in this act will have no place to go and hide,” she said.

According to Mugo, policies on the practice in Kenya and Tanzania differ a lot with locals escaping after pressure was placed on chiefs and their assistants to stump out the vice in their areas of operation.

At the same time, it has now emerged

She was speaking at Ikerege Secondary School during a capacity building of more than 100 Form Four students who hail from the region.

Tingo called on the Government to act tough on parents who defied the law proscribing FGM, in a bid to stamp out female cut in the region.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) describes Female Genital Mutilation as comprising all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

According to WHO, FGM, though a cultural rite of passage, is recognised internationally as a violation of human rights of girls and women. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children.The practice also violates a person’s rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.Leaders from Kuria community have been asked to discourage parents from the practice of “cutting”their daughters as a way of empowering the girls.

It is this kind of dialogue that is being advocated by the Peace Initiative Kenya project working in Migori, Kisii, Kisumu, Nandi, Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia, Mombasa, Kwale and Taita Taveta counties. The PIK project strategy is to support and lobby county government leadership for the establishment and maintenance of structures of social service delivery such as GBV service committees that will enhance dialogue.

PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Abused and uneducated, GBV forces girls out of school

By Mary Mwendwa

A

high number of girls are dropping out of school in Kwale County due to increased cases of gender based violence.

According to a GBV preliminary audit report conducted by International Rescue Committee (IRC) and USAID, only one in every 100 girls who enrol in class one go beyond class five.

The high rate of dropout, alarming cases of defilement, child abuse, negligence and early marriages are cited as some of the contributors to this shocking picture of girl child education in Kwale.

The arlaming findings by the audit report indicate that coastal counties have the highest number of defilement cases among other forms of gender based violence. In Kwale County, cultural disposition does not respect women as they are considered mere property, while girls are only valued for purposes of dowry.

Culture is blamed for early marriages as girls are married off at the onset of puberty. Early pregnancy is considered more as an indication of maturity as opposed to sexual abuse of children as it should be and prosecuted under the law, including the Children’s Act 2001, which has outlawed child marriages.

Value

The community in Kwale County does not value formal education, especially that of the girl child.The report notes a general lack of commitment to educate both boys and girls. The homestead layout is such that dwelling places are so closely situated among relatives, often making monitoring the whereabouts of young girls difficult and hence encouraging high levels of incest and defilement.

A woman with her two daughters in Kwale County where the girl child is not safe from sexual violence.

Photo: Omar Mwalago

education, which is largely affected by GBV cases, reflects on how the County is vast with police stations being located far apart and away from most homes.

The distances make access to justice a challenge and elusive. Kwale County has only one law court. The furthest corners of the county have significant barriers to accessing the court with the transport costs being as high as KShs1,100 for one way trip.

A case that is easily picked is that of Ndaraya Primary School, which at one point enrolled the highest number of girls in class one, by class five there was only one girl left in the school.

Gender based violence cases take very long and require several visits making the quest for justice an expensive venture.

The cost of a P3 form — KShs1,000 — is considered very high in the poverty stricken County.

The grim picture of girl child

Negotiations and or out of court settlements are often the preferred methods of dealing with GBV cases.

Parents of assaulted children negotiate out of court and opt to marry off their daughters at a very early age. In the event of persons opting for a court process, witnesses are often intimidated or compromised not to testify.

“We are convinced that almost all of the 111 girls had either been married off, were pregnant or both. This is a very serious problem we are facing in this County where generally issues to do with education are not taken seriously by the community. Boys also drop out and become herds boys or to engage in casual work around here,” a teacher is quoted

Settle

Though in Kenya, gender based violence occurs across all socio-economic and cultural strata, women are socialised to accept, tolerate and even rationalise the violence as well as to remain silent about such ordeals.

According to Kenya Demographic Health Survey (KDHS), GBV can be defined as any physical, sexual or psychological violence that occurs within the family or generally in the community.

The findings on gender based violence on the nationwide survey found that about half of all women sampled from the age of 15 years and above have experienced some form of domestic violence.The same data shows that the experience of domestic violence is varied and occurs in all forms including psychological, physical and sexual, which all rise with age.

Experience

In the 15-49 years category, 43 per cent of women reported having experienced some form of gender-based violence in their lifetime, with 29 per cent reporting an experience in the previous year; 16 per cent having ever been sexually abused, and

13 per cent reporting that the violence was meted on them during the 12 months immediately preceding the survey.This is according to the Kenya National Bureau of Standards report 2010.

Similar to global trends where the most common forms of violence against a woman is abuse by a husband or an intimate partner, the Kenya Demographic Health Survey revealed that the main perpetrators of GBV in Kenya are husbands, and to a lesser extent, teachers, mothers and fathers.

Peace Initiative Kenya project, under the International Rescue Committee and supported by USAID is working in Kwale, Mombasa and Taita Taveta counties at the Coast where it strives to strengthen county engagemnet in preventing and responding to GBV and to increase access and utilization of GBV services through community outreach and other awareness raising efforts.

It is hoped that such an initiative will save the girl child in Kwale, enable her complete education and have a life fee of violence.

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PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Kenya launches FGM and child marriage hotline

By Katy Migiro

K

enya has launched a hotline to rescue girls from female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriages.

The ambitious project will also help prosecute those crimes.

Kenya stepped up the fight against FGM, a banned traditional practice which involves the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, with the creation of a prosecution unit in March, 2014, that has 20 prosecutors based in FGM-practising communities around the country.

“If we get this information before hand, it will actually assist in prevention of the practise because we can organise our officers on the ground to raid the place and rescue the girls,” Christine Nanjala, head of the Anti-FGM Prosecution Unit, told Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The hotline number 0770610505 was launched in August and goes through to one of the unit’s members of staff.

“The line is on twenty-four seven,”said Nanjala. She added: “Any time you make a report, (a staff member) will attend to it, document it and then we react.”

The unit has been active in helping

the authorities prosecute cases of FGM and educating communities about the crime.

The Unit recently charged two guardians with the murder after a 13year-old Maasai girl, Rehema Lesale, bled to death in April.

It is also investigating the case of a 16-year-old Pokot girl, Alvina Noel, who also bled to death after giving birth several days after she was cut.

Nanjala said she hopes the hotline will expedite the unit’s work.

“For the Pokot incident, unfortunately it actually came out in the newspaper,”said Nanjala. She explained: “This girl died on July 30, so we are getting this information one month down the line. But we have used our networks on the ground and we are actually on top of it right now.”

Action will be taken after the unit, which is part of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, has completed its investigations.

The unit is also following up on a report reported in the local dailies about four girls who were circumcised in Baringo County, 300 kilometres north-west of Kenya’s capital city Nairobi.

“According to Sarich Cheptakor, the mother of one of the girls (from the Pokot community) said that they must be circumcised for them to become adults and ‘be complete’women,”the newspaper reported.

Kenya has outlawed FGM and has operationalised the Prohibition Against FGM Act. The Kenyan law provides for life imprisonment when a girl dies from female genital mutilation which can cause haemorrhage, shock, complications in childbirth, fistula and severe pain during sexual intercourse.

Around 27 percent of Kenyan women and girls have been circumcised, with the highest rates among the Somali, Kisii and Maasai communities. * Courtesy of Thomson Reuters Foundation

Teenage girl’s life cut short by police bullet injury there were no other pathological conditions in her body,” reported the pathologists who faulted the initial inaccurate police report.

By Teryani Mwadzaya

S

he suffered triple tragedy, when her only daughter was shot dead by police and later exhumed after security forces gave conflicting reports.

The exhumation and post mortem examination revealed that the girl died from a close range shot bullet wound.

Unconvincing police report prompted the court to ask for a second post-mortem on the body of Kwekwe Mwandaza.The second autopsy report confirmed that Kwekwe died from a gunshot wound.

Three pathologists, who include the Chief Government Pathologist, Johason Oduor, who did a full autopsy have also dismissed as inaccurate the initial police report, which suggested she may have died of cardiovascular arrest.

The police shot dead the 14-year-old girl last month claiming their action was in self-defence.

This was done after confusion and tension reined in Maweni Village, Kinango Constituency in Kwale County as Kwekwe Machupa, a middle aged woman, describes how separation cost the life of her only 14-year-old daughter who was robbed of her life when eight policemen stormed their home.

According to Machupa, she had separated with her husband since the birth of her child and was responsible

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The house where Kwekwe Mwandza was murdered. (inset) Kwekwe Machupa whose daughter was killed by the police.

Photos: Teryani Mwadzaya.

for her upkeep.

”I separated with my husband when my daughter was only one and half years old. I suffered fertility problems and could not have another child after Kwekwe,” explains Machupa.

According to Machupa, her husband would beat her because she could not bear him any more children as is expected among his community, the Duruma.

Machupa had to move back to her parent’s home as her husband remarried.

“I have been the sole provider for our daughter, taking care of her school fees and other necessities though I live in my father’s home.”

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In seeking justice for Kwekwe, Machupa wants the police officer who shot her to be sacked and prosecuted. “I want the police officer who shot my girl to be fired so that justice can be seen to be done,” says Machupa.

The three pathologists who did the autopsy and concluded that there was no other disease Kwekwe was suffering and that she died from gun-shot wounds.

“The cause of death is severe head injury due to a single gunshot from high velocity fire arm,” the pathologists reported.

“She didn’t have any other disease that may explain her death because we have done a full autopsy and we all concur as the pathologists that apart from the gun shot

Dr Andrew Gachie, a forensic pathologist reported: “It is a question to our colleagues in the medical field the formulation of the cause of death is extremely important in such a case which is so obvious as a gunshot wound and it is not emphasised then its causes a lot of ambiguity and as you can see it necessitates a repeat post-mortem which is not only costly but also has a traumatic effect to the family and to the larger community.”

Nevertheless, Haroun Ndubi, who was the lawyer representing the family l demanded an apology from the Government. “We only know that the police killed. We hope that after the post-mortem report, the Director of Public Prosecutions will do what is right according to the Constitution.”

The Director of Public Prosecutions has opened investigations into the case.

Kwekwe’s family now awaits the Director of the Public Prosecutions report after the pathologist’s autopsy and Kwekwe’s reburial after her dreams were shattered by a gunshot last month.

Even as Machupa seeks justice for her daughter, her heart bleeds for her only child.

PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

mounted initiatives in all the seven Counties in North Rift and these are Uasin Gishu, Nandi, Elgeyo Marakwet, Kericho and parts of West Pokot, Samburu and Turkana counties.

“We started at the grassroots, as women, to solve conflicts that existed among different warring groups within Uasin Gishu and later spread out to other regions in the country where there was no peaceful co-existence among communities,” Kimani explains.

Today, she is happy that in some of those areas, peace had been restored within the family as partners are now dialoguing instead of engaging in violence.

This is one of their four successful stories.

Various stakeholders at the meeting concurred saying safety of all Kenyans was paramount.

Beatrice Kimani, a member of the Rural Women Peace Link, says they are encouraging couples to sit down and dialogue amicably instead of physically PHOTO: awc correspondent

Dialogue to mitigate domestic violence

By AWC Correspondent

D

omestic violence is a situation characterised by patterns of behaviour which involve the abuse by one person against another who are in an intimate relationship, marriage, cohabitation, or within a family. Within this set up forms of violence include physical, emotional, verbal, economic and sexual abuse.

In the upper parts of the Rift Valley, physical violence among couples living in Burnt Forest area is rampant.

This is according to the Rural Women Peace Link, an implementing partner of the Peace Initiative Kenya Project, under the International Rescue Committee and, supported by USAID. According to Beatrice Kimani, a member of the Rural Women Peace Link, wife battering in the region was a

common occurrence despite the efforts to create awareness on the health dangers and economic burdens this act has on the individual and the whole family.

However, to mitigate domestic violence Rural Women Peace Link is now promoting dialogue in the community as an effective way of trying to have couples settle their differences amicably instead of resorting to verbal and/or physical fights.

“We are now encouraging couples to sit down and dialogue as a way of settling their differences amicably instead of physically,” says Kimani, who notes that their efforts have started bearing fruit.

Under the Peace Initiative Kenya project, Rural Women Peace Link has launched massive campaigns to create awareness among communities in the region about the economic implications of gender-based-violence.

“The support has seen many women

in conflict-prone counties in Kenya empowered to fight the vice that continues to undermine family unity and values within Kenyan population,” says Kimani.

Kimani, who is the Rural Women Peace Link coordinator in Burnt Forest, was speaking during a joint peace actors’ meeting in Eldoret where she noted that women are leading in the dialogues and their efforts were positive.

Uasin Gishu County experienced the worst impact of ethnic and tribal bloodshed that engulfed many parts of the country following the disputed presidential results in December 2007.

Many families were affected especially those that married from different communities.

“The dialogue has been started with the aim of integrating all family members in the society,” says Kimani.

According to Varajab Shaban, Peace Initiative Kenya coordinator at the Rural Women Peace Link, the programme aims at empowering women and men at the community level to ensure that peace and zero tolerance to gender based violence starts at the household level.

“We aim at sensitising communities on what gender-based-violence is all about. We interrogate its causes, effects and how the survivors can access services like health as well as legal and psychological support,” says Shaban.

He adds: “We are always making use of our surveys to advocate for intervention from stakeholders who include County governments.”

Shaban says Peace Initiative Kenya project is helping to fight stereotypes and bad cultural practices. It is also helping in creating awareness among communities on the importance of reporting GBV cases.

The mission of the Peace Initiative Kenya project is to improve national and county level gender based violence service delivery systems and policy implementation. One of PIK objective is to strengthen county engagement in preventing and responding to GBV.

Rural Women Peace Link has

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PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Family conflict leaves girl susceptible to sexual violence

By Carol Korir

H

alima Achieng, a mother of two lives in constant fear after a misunderstanding with her husband left her shattered and her six-year-old daughter at risk of abuse.

“It all began two years ago when I accidentally got pregnant for the second child. My husband stopped providing for us but somehow when I was almost giving birth he changed his mind, but throughout that period till now he has denied me my conjugal rights,” says Halima.

Although she has learned to deal with the situation, Halima is struggling to comprehend another challenge which involves her daughter.

“For a very long time we have not been sharing the same bed but this did not worry me until my husband bought another bed and started sharing it with my daughter,” says Halima.

She says: “I am not comfortable with this at all. As much as I know he loves his daughter, with the gap between me and him if he has no ‘mpango wa kando’ (extramarital affair) then one day I will not be shocked to learn he has been sleeping with my daughter.”

Halima’s husband did not want her to get any job. However, because she needed to provide for her children, she decided to disobey him and get a job.

“I talked with one of my neighbours to allow her house girl to take care of my kids too,” she explains.

Halima says: “Since I began working he does not provide for us. Whatever he brings back home he only gives our daughter leaving me and my son out.”

These actions have left Halima unsettled and the fact that she works late makes her feel that the young girl is not secure with her father.

“I work in a salon in Eastleigh and many days I work until 8pm and because I have to save something I normally walk all the way to Bahati,”Halima explains.“On many occasions when I get back home, I find my daughter with my husband alone in the house.”

She notes: “My daughter never waits for me to pick her up from the neighbour’s place. She goes back home alone when it ticks 5 o’clock. Even though she might be still innocent, she is too exposed.”

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She is also worried that the conflict is affecting her daughter emotionally. “My daughter at times asks me ‘why do you and papa quarrel’ every day?”

Halima is between a rock and a hard place. While she would have loved to take her daughter to her parents’ home, her mother is not there having died sometime back.

“I am an only child to my parents. My mother died a long time ago, and if I took my daughter back home, it would mean

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leaving her in the hands of my father,” she says.

She is not comfortable with this idea either given the rising cases of defilement perpetrated against children by close relatives.

Halima’s situation is just one of many agonies that women face everyday in and out of their houses. She is not fully assured that her child will be safe in the neighbourhood or even in her own home.

Halima’s case and that of many other women and girls facing domestic violence within the family remain a challenge for many initiatives that have been put in place to address gender based violence.

Peace Initiative Kenya project is one of the initiatives that has a vision to ensure a nation free of all forms of gender based violence. One of the results it hopes to get is improved participation of women and men in GBV prevention and response at the county level.

PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Malnutrition among children linked to violence

By Mary Mwendwa

D

omestic and sexual violence against women is a global problem, and young children are disproportionate witnesses.

While violence will affect individual survivours differently, it is noted that violence against women has not only psychological effects on their children, but their health also tends to suffer.

Therefore, children’s exposure to domestic violence predicts poorer health and development.

According to the Kenya Demographic Health Survey (KDHS) 2008-2009 violence of any kind has a serious impact on the economy of a country; because women bear the brunt of domestic violence, they also bear the health and psychological burdens.

Experts warn that children of women who have undergone Gender Based Violence (GBV), especially in conflict zones, have high chances of suffering from malnutrition.

According to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), more than 80 per cent of populations in refugee camps are women and children. Frequently in armed conflict, access to food at the household level is seriously impaired and there is a reduction in both the quality and quantity of food available to the household. There is also an increased instability and uncertainty in the food supply.

Refugees and internally displaced people are at greater risk of GBV and sexual abuse because of the cycle of poverty and helplessness that characterises their situation. Rape is used as weapon of war as found in African countries. During conflict women also find it difficult to leave their homes to go and look for food for their children, a factor that will affect their feeding and growth eventually leading to malnutrition.

Experts say that when women face GBV of any form, their self-esteem is lowered and many times they are not able to give full care to their children.The injuries they have suffered may also bar them from fulfilling their roles as mothers, forcing them to leave the children starving,

not breast fed or totally hungry for a number of days as they recover.

Other than the mother losing selfesteem and not being in a proper mental condition to take care of the children, domestic violence also affects household food and nutrition security.

According to Manaan Muma, a nutritionist at Kenya Aids NGOs Consortium (KANCO),immediate causes

“Most Kenyans still rely on diets composed primarily of staple foods that are not sufficiently diverse in micro-nutrients, comprising of growth and development Manaan Muma, a nutritionist at Kenya Aids NGOs Consortium (KANCO) of malnutrition include inappropriate dietary intake, primarily among young children and a high disease burden.

She adds: “Most Kenyans still rely on diets composed primarily of staple foods that are not sufficiently diverse in micro-nutrients, comprising of growth and development that is worse in refugee camps where there is not enough food and many people are depending on aid.’’

Malnutrition remains the underlying cause of deaths of nearly half of all under five-year-old child deaths. Addressing GBV, which contributes to malnutrition, will save lives, reduce inequalities and build strong and resilient individuals, families, communities and populations.

The Convention of the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the comprehensive

A couple in a posed picture of how domestic violence affects children.PHOTO: awc correspondent

African Agriculture Development programme of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) identify at least nine strategic objectives which include, improving knowledge, attitudes and practices on optimal nutrition, strengthening nutrition surveillance , monitoring and evaluation systems and improving nutrition in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) populations where many refugees are found.

Women are usually the immediate survivors of GBV; the consequences of gender violence extend beyond the survivor to the society as a whole.

Gender violence threatens family structures; children suffer emotional damage when they watch their mothers and sisters being battered; two-parent homes may break up, leaving the new female heads of household to struggle against increased poverty and negative social repercussions.

When women die they leave behind families and children. Older children will drop out of school to look after younger babies. It is this devastating cycle of poverty and lack of access to basic rights that causes malnutrition in families.

Given the global burden of child malnutrition and its long-term effects on human-capital formation, improving child growth and nutrition may be another reason to prevent domestic violence and its cascading after-effects

Psychological scars often impede the establishment of healthy and rewarding relationships in the future. Survivors of gender violence may vent their frustrations on their children and others too, by transmitting and intensifying the negative experiences of those around them.

Children, on the other hand, may come to accept violence as an alternative means of conflict resolution and communication. It is in these ways that violence is reproduced and perpetuated.

Peace Initiative Kenya project, under the International Rescue Committee and supported by USAID, is working in nine counties of Mombasa, Kwale, Taita Taveta, Migori, Kisii, Kisumu, Nandi, Uasin Gishu, and Trans Nzoia as a beginning towards ensuring a nation free from all forms of gender based violence.

Working with allies like spouses of county leaders, PIK hopes to have an innovative, enhanced civic education campaign resulting in greater focus on GBV at county and national levels with greater opportunities for citizen advocacy.

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PROMOTING A SOCIETY FREE OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Most at risk populations remain exposed to gender based violence

By Robert Wanjala

I

magine you are hit by a deadly bug — anal gonorrhoea. You walk in a healthcare facility and the nurse bursts into hysterical screams when she learns of your case, calling all her colleagues to come and listen to your story.

If that is not humiliating enough; how about walking to a police station because you have had a thorough beating from a gang of youth for displaying feminine traits if you are a man and being blackmailed by the officers.

Worse still you just got fired from your job without any benefit, you seek legal redress and the lawyer refuses to represent you on grounds that you are not straight sexually and terms it a ‘shameful’ case!

Now these could just be some of the hidden ongoing forms of psychological and physical violence against people of same-sex orientation in Kenya.

As a result survivors of this violence have been scared into going underground and leaving them exposed to various challenges including the spread of HIV. Although latest statistics show a reduction in the HIV prevalence rate from 7.2 to 5.6 per cent, there are about 100,000 people who are infected every year.

George is one of the victims of violence due to his sexual orientation. He says that the society’s harsh stereotype perception, stigmatisation and prejudice has driven

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worker says most of his clients are mostly married men with families, a confession that confirms the existence of heterosexual behaviour and a high risk medium.

The 2012 Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey (KAIS) released on June 25 also shows that more than 6,000 teachers and 242,000 children under the age of 14 years are infected with the virus.

The National Aids and STI Control Programme statistics show that a third of new HIV infections every year are attributed to most-at-risk population who account for less than about five per cent of Kenya’s population.

most of his friends to suffer quietly as their freedoms and rights to access healthcare and security are frustrated.

Gays, male and female sex workers as well as people who inject drugs often referred to as most-at-risk populations say harsh public judgement on their sexual orientation and activities is infringing on their constitutional and basic human rights.

“Once you are known to be a gay man it is impossible to access healthcare and protection services due to stereotypes and prejudices expressed by health providers and security agencies,” says George.

He claims that public hospitals are the worst perpetrators of violence against most-at-risk populations followed by security agencies and places of work.

George says he was recently fired from his job after he revealed certain confidential issues in the organisation.

As a result he was dismissed summarily. However, he believes his sacking had everything to do with his sexual orientation.

He has since moved on and is now the coordinator of Kenyan Society for Attitude Change and Study of Sexual Minorities.

George narrates an incident of another member of his group who was ridiculed and even threatened with arrests by health providers because of his sexual orientation.

“I remember of a case where a gay

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Health and human rights organisations say they have recorded increased cases of violence targeting gays.

Mutuku , who has gone public about his sexual orientation makes a point to the media. He is a victim of gender based violence for his sexual orientation. Picture Robert Wanjala.

individual suffering from anal gonorrhoea told a nurse of what he was suffering from. .In reaction, she screamed and called the rest of her colleagues to come and see this strange phenomena,” George claims.

He notes: “That alone has since scared away most gays from seeking healthcare services and do not want to know their HIV status.”

Mutuku, who is gay and a victim of hostility from society because of his sexual orientation, says he was attacked by a gang of youth at a Nairobi estate because of his feminine traits.

Mutuku feared going to report because of the negative reception that they usually get from the police.

Mutuku, who is a male commercial sex

“About 33,000 of infections in the country are attributed to key populations with a range of 20 to 50 percent prevalence in men having sex above 24 years,” says Helgar Musyoki, programme manager, Most-at-Risk Populations at NASCOP. She notes that prevalence in ages below 19 stands at 13.7 percent three times the national prevalence.

Latest statistics reveal that close to 192,000 teenagers and young adults of between 15 to 20 years have the virus.

“There is need to focus on this population if we really want to make progress on HIV prevention in the country,” says Musyoki.

Statistics further show that about 60 percent of men who have sex with men are married and have children.

“This means that they cannot be easily identified from the general population,” Musyoki says.

Public hostility towards key populations and especially men having sex with men has also seen an increase in number of male prostitution.