By Mercy Kachenge
Migori County,Kenya: As the world approaches the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 2025, it aims at achieving gender equality among women’s and girls’ rights everywhere with the theme being, ‘unite and invest to end violence against women and girls.
World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 736 million women nearly 1 in 3 experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence at least once in their lives.
Professor Rosa Ogwang, the Chief Officer in charge of Gender Inclusivity, Culture, and Social Services in Migori County notes that although we had a declaration on zero tolerance to gender-based violence and FGM specifically in Kuria Migori, there are certain underground activities that are still going on as a county government where they are working very closely with the national government to make sure that any person who has been found doing this is brought to book.
Professor Ogwang urged the need to come together, both state actors and non-state actors and religious leaders to expose any underground activity that might be going on in the community concerning Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
She stated that the systems have been put in place in case anybody has suffered from any form of violence to move to the rescue centers so that we can be able to know how to deal with it. The a need to report and expose all acts GBV so that all of us can be able to fight this vice in Migori County within the 16 days of activism. She added that they are putting together several activities that will be running on a day-to-day basis so that anybody who says that they want to be free of GBV will find a way of participating or coming out of any compromising situation that is not safe for them.
Professor Rosa underscored the need to work together with other countries because of issues of a triple threat, including gender-based violence, new infections in HIV and AIDs, and issues of early pregnancies for our young girls. ‘’Nevertheless, we are tackling them together and this time in December we are coming together as women of Nyanza to completely condemn any situation that deals with GBV or the triple threat and they will be going to be at the stadium on the 6th of December with all women from the grassroots, and we will be speaking with the women parliamentarians, both from Migori, Homabay, Kisumu and Siaya because we must keep Nyanza safe from triple threats, ’she emphasized.
Jane Boke Mwita, Universal Relief Foundation, a community-based organization working in Migori County urged the need to advocate for the rights of women and girls in these 16 Days of activism. The Universal Relief Foundation advocates for rights by ensuring that women and girls are safe through the government, protecting the girls and women in Migori County and the country as a whole since it is an international event that is celebrated all over the world.
According to Jane Boke, the Universal Relief Foundation in Migori County is an organization working for women and children and they have been facing a lot of challenges that are out there in the community. The state actors who are the government have policies that are not implemented since they have staffs out there who are not ready to do their work.
‘’The government sometimes especially the Judiciary, have some cases that got caught and these cases are not seen to the last point of the case since the case disappears in between and as an organization, it gives them a hard time because when you report these cases, you want to see justice for the survivors, or justice even if the person has been killed,’’ she said.
Additionally, they also experience a lot of femicide cases in the county and the country as a whole and they have realized that these cases of femicide do not go far because sometimes you are told to present witnesses to present the evidence. This gives their organization a very difficult time ensuring that justice prevails for these people, the family of the deceased or the family of the survivor, and even the survivor himself.
‘’They also have challenges on issues of reporting since the cases are not reported to the police because of stigma and when they are reported to the police, people fear because they do not know what will happen. Sometimes even the police are not confidential with these cases. So you will report a case today and tomorrow you are witch-hunted even by the perpetrator, the family of the perpetrator who has done the killings, or who has attacked the survivor.”
Most of the girls are not aware of their rights and thus need a lot of sensitization, capacity building at their levels, and engagements with other organizations, and all these require funds and resources which sometimes they are not able to do what are supposed to do because of the inadequacy of resources such as funding, and human resource.
‘’So it has not been easy for us as an organization and you know organizations are the just voice of the people, we neither have the mandate to arrest nor the mandate to take this case beyond the perpetrator’s level and the survivor’s level. This is because if the survivor is not ready to stand and testify against what happened to her, as an organization, we will do nothing,’’ she stated.
Furthermore, children have died, and it is in their culture that when they die, they are not supposed to be buried. Their bodies are transported from one clan to another clan which is very wrong. It is very painful for the family because it is good when you find the grave of your child. You don’t know where your child is, as a mother, it is painful and a trauma that will not come out of that mother.
Jane Boke underscored the need to call upon the political class, and the need of political goodwill to help champion the eradication of triple threat and female genital mutilation, especially in Kuria, Migori where they have been receiving a lot of information from media concerning femicide and GBVs. As an organization advocating for women, we have realized that femicide is an issue in this community, and no one has even condemned it and no justice is served to these families and to these women with the children.
Moreover,‘’ we call upon the government ministry that is in charge of, the policies that are in place in the country since there have been several policies in place that are, serving and preventing the legal action for women not to be violated To leverage it calls for an organization and the government ministries that are handling children issues that even if at their death, let them be protected and the bodies be buried in a respected manner.”
Absalom Odera Ouma works with the Community Action for Development Organization (CADO) which advocates for human rights, Gender Violence (GBV) education, and health. The 16 days of activism aims to campaign or to champion the right and to advocate against gender-based violence through educating the community nationwide, and countywide against forms of gender-based violence.
According to Odera, in terms of coordination, he appeals to the county especially the judiciary to at least go through the cases of gender-based violence through speeding the process and up the judgment on gender-based violence.
He underscored the need for the gun government mostly the chief to come on board to address the gender-based violence, to report them and act on them accordingly, and also to zero rate the kangaroo courts which can only be only be done through the chiefs.
He also highlighted that there are policies governing gender justice violence and the people concerned in addressing them are very relaxed the county assembly is too reluctant to implement these policies so they come to action and call them to condemn because it is an act that is loudly portraying that we are still in the state of gender-based violence violation, which should not be the case.
‘’We intend to achieve that the 16 days set aside from today to the 10th of December through their work plan and expect each and every sub-county, every court, and every community to be reached with the information on gender-based violence, how to protect themselves, how best they can solve or help solve gender-based violence, ’he said.
Maureen Akomo, an Advocate from Awendo, advocates for her community on gender-based violence by trying to fight this as a community and curb members in order to ensure that all the people in the community are safe and need security persons to give them least secure places for us to have a safe environment for the community to live healthy and also for the community not to live in a fearless manner.
According to Maureen Akomo, the strategy that we are using to curb femicide as a community advisory board is that they are working with the community to at least curb these cases through working with the administration, the police, and other stakeholders.
‘’We engage the community for example if there is a GBV case in that it is in the community, we go there, we hold a dialogue, we share with the community, and they give us a way forward on how to curb the incidents, ’she said.
Jane Awuor Agwenge works with AMUA Mama Initiative which partners with FIDA Kenya. Their main programs are legal Aid, and legal pathways that advocate mostly gender-based violence in all aspects and the main focus is on femicide, (sex for fish) which happens around the areas in the lake region AMUA Mama is working towards research on ending femicide through finding out the reasons why femicide is increasing in number despite most women coming out and advocating for it.
Jane Awuor says that within the 16 days of activism against all forms of gender-based violence, the AMUA Mama initiative will work with the administration so that we can try and find the perpetrators and also understand why women are the victims of such kinds of murders.
She appeals to the government to kindly take femicide cases seriously since it is not only affecting women in Migori County but also around Kenya. She calls for the need of the government to put in resources and even have a national dialogue around femicide and to county government, she appeals to their women representatives to work with them, talk about it, and come out to help them walk in this journey of advocating and even demonstrate against femicide.
She emphasized the need to sensitize the community by opening up and talking about the importance of gender-based violence reporting pathways by doing away with kangaroo courts.
