Rebecca Cheptegei’s homicide has struck a robust private chord with me. Like her, I’m an athlete and a mom. Like her, I left my hometown looking for higher alternatives. Like her, I’m a strong-willed, unbiased lady who goals large. And her life has been minimize quick as a result of she was all of this and extra.
Patriarchy Takes Its Toll
In keeping with World Athletics statistics, at one level in her profession, Rebecca was the second-fastest feminine Ugandan marathoner of all time. She represented Uganda in World Cross championships. She was charting a global sporting profession for herself, combating adversities that each girls sportsperson faces. None of this mattered when it got here to her home unequal relations. A person recognized to her selected to resolve the destiny of her life.
Rebecca’s homicide is an simple case of Femicide, which is outlined as intentional killing with a gender-related motivation, pushed by stereotyped gender roles, discrimination in direction of girls and ladies, unequal energy relations between ladies and men, or dangerous social norms.
No Silent Disaster
Femicide has usually been referred to as a “Silent Disaster”. However what’s silent about girls dealing with grotesque deaths by the hands of their intimate companions? What’s silent about girls ending up in morgues solely as a result of they’re girls? What’s silent about their goals coming to an abrupt finish for no fault of theirs?
Femicide isn’t any “Silent Disaster”. It’s a “Main Nationwide Disaster” and ladies in Kenya made it loud and clear to start with of 2024, once they took over the streets in each county with chants of Finish Femicide and the Darkish Valentine. Our Nguvu Change Leaders carried placards with messages together with “We Are Human Beings”, “Say Their Names”, and “Cease Killing Us!”
Femicide has thrived in Kenya due to a historical past of violence in opposition to girls, a misogynist collective consciousness, and a dangerous public discourse.
Lowered to Mere Statistics
With Rebecca Cheptegei, Damaris Muthee, Edith Muthoni or Agnes Tirop, there’s international consideration, and an pressing demand for motion in opposition to Femicide.
There are numerous different girls, who had been victims of Femicide, however didn’t make it to headlines, and remained mere numbers in Kenya’s Femicide statistics. Let’s take a second to recollect them. Now we have a collective duty to make sure no lady results in that statistic.
Empty guarantees?
International clarion calls are being raised for the Kenyan authorities to recognise Femicide as a separate crime and to make sure sturdy measures to make sure the security of ladies. The Kenyan authorities has made guarantees corresponding to ending GBV by 2030. However what has modified? Ladies proceed to lose their lives, prison jurisprudence is an entire let-down as instances drag on for years, conviction charges are abysmal, corruption crushes any makes an attempt to hunt justice, and the systemic challenges nearly appear insurmountable.
Brief lived reminiscence
Femicide hits headlines each time there’s a sensational homicide. It dominates a number of days of the information cycle after which, issues transfer on. All of us have a job to play on this – the media, residents and policymakers. We’re all responsible of shifting on. Femicide is forgotten till the subsequent sensational, high-profile homicide is reported. It’s conveniently tucked away from the general public and coverage narrative. So long as our collective reminiscence stays quick and distracted, femicide won’t ever be a authorities precedence.
Femicide is essentially the most excessive type of gender-based violence. It’s normally the deadly finish of a sample of bodily or sexual violence, fuelled by social norms that implement male management or energy over girls. Femicide has no place in an equal world. And it begins with every considered one of us ending the normalisation of violence.
Bio: Durga Nandini is the Co-Founder and Chief Advisor at Nguvu Collective. She is an award-winning journalist, and campaigns and communications skilled who writes on gender rights points.