Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition party leader Raila Odinga has denounced increased cases of femicides in the country noting that murder cannot be normalised.
Through a statement on his official X account, the former prime minister termed the sad trend a national emergency and an ugly scourge that must stop.
"It is sad to see a troubling increase in the deaths of young women, leaving a trail of grief for families and friends. The abnormality of these murders cannot become the new normal. Murder is and will always be wrong, and there is no excuse. The ugly scourge of murder of women is now a national emergency. It is a threat to homeland security. It must come to an end," Raila Odinga noted.
Raila's statement comes amid outrage after the killings of at least three women in Nairobi and Kilifi counties.
Regrettably, the cases have also reignited the all-too-familiar insidious misogyny conversation around violence against women and girls online. You might think that in 2024, these verbal postmortems would call out men and ask them to stop killing/being violent but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
What is femicide?
Femicide is the intentional murder of women because they are women and the most extreme form of gender-based violence (GBV).
There are two categories of femicides; intimate -the killing of women by current or ex-partners and non-intimate femicide -the killing of women by people with whom they had no intimate relationship.
Most cases of femicide are committed by partners or ex-partners and can range from abuse at home, threats or intimidation, sexual violence or situations where women have less power or fewer resources than their partner according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
How to stop femicide
Among the best practices would be a government action plan for femicide reduction and prosecuting the abusers.
An intentional change in cultural and social norms ranging from "masculinity and femininity, gender equality, domestic violence and femicide laws, patriarchal ideology, traditional values, the role of religion in society and media coverage of femicide and violence against women."
Remarkably, here's what doesn't work: reminding women of the 'made-up safety rules' from what to do or wear, and how to behave to avoid becoming victims of violence.
Safety rules aggressively perpetuate women are second-class citizens with an added duty of deferring to the unalienable rights of violent men to exist. They are false assurances and no amount of caution is a deterrent for a man intent on taking away your life, making you feel degraded and/or humiliated for his pleasure.
Also, the idea that any woman would need reminding of these made-up 'rules' – when they have been seared into our collective consciousness since childhood – is laughable.
Just stop killing women!
