Their findings, presented in November 2025, are impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n
About one in three women has experienced physical violence since the age of 15. More than one in ten has experienced sexual violence.<\/p>\n
Between 2022 and 2024 alone, at least 1,639 women were killed, with the numbers rising year after year.<\/p>\n
Most of these killings were not random acts.<\/p>\n
They were carried out by people known to the victim – partners, relatives, or familiar faces.<\/p>\n
Women aged 30 to 44 are most affected, but cases involving teenage girls are increasing. Nairobi, Nakuru and Meru report the highest numbers – though experts warn that under-reporting remains widespread.<\/p>\n
How is The System Failing?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n First, femicide is legally invisible<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n Kenya does not recognise it as a distinct crime. Killings of women are recorded simply as homicide, erasing the gendered patterns that could help prevent future violence.<\/p>\n Second, survivors face broken justice pathways<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n Police stations, hospitals, and courts are under-resourced and poorly linked, especially outside major towns. For many survivors, seeking justice becomes another form of trauma.<\/p>\n Third, families and communities often block accountability.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Cases are quietly \u201csettled\u201d through elders or informal arrangements, pressuring survivors to withdraw complaints and allowing perpetrators to walk free.<\/p>\n The digital space hasn\u2019t helped much either.<\/p>\n While social media has amplified awareness, it has also fueled victim-blaming, misinformation, and the spread of harmful content that re-traumatises survivors.<\/p>\n Recommendations of the Report<\/strong><\/p>\n The Working Group calls for GBV and femicide to be declared a national crisis, triggering urgent coordination and funding.<\/p>\n It urges Parliament to create a specific crime of femicide, making investigation and prosecution clearer and more effective.<\/p>\n Out-of-court settlements in serious GBV cases should be criminalised.<\/p>\n Survivor support must be expanded through one-stop recovery centres, mental health services, and economic empowerment to break cycles of dependence.<\/p>\n The report also proposes fixing accountability gaps by establishing a National GBV and Femicide Database, supported by real-time tracking and standardised reporting across institutions.<\/p>\n Digital platforms, media, and influencers would be guided by a GBV Digital Ethics Code to reduce harm online.<\/p>\n Most critically, it calls for proper funding – including a National GBV and Femicide Fund and ring-fenced county budgets.<\/p>\n In a Nutshell ….<\/em><\/p>\n GBV and femicide are not private family matters.<\/p>\n They are violations of constitutional rights, a threat to national development, and a measure of how seriously Kenya values human dignity.<\/p>\n Ending this crisis will require law, leadership and culture change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gender-Based Violence, including the killing of women and girls, has been rising quietly, steadily, and often behind closed doors. In January 2025, President Ruto appointed a high-level Technical Working Group, chaired by former Deputy Chief Justice Dr. Nancy Baraza, to answer one urgent question: Why, despite laws and institutions, are women still unsafe? Their findings, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6067,"featured_media":231939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-parts\/template3.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138280],"tags":[140324,140323,140322],"class_list":["post-231936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-femicide-in-kenya-news","tag-gbv","tag-gender-based-violence-news"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ghafla.co.ke\/ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/01\/images-1.jpg\")