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Each freshMPYour browser does not support the element. killing seems more gruesome than the last. In July the hacked-up remains of nine women were found stuffed into sacks in a quarry in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. In September Rebecca Cheptegei, a Ugandan Olympic runner who was living in Kenya, was doused in petrol and set on fire by her estranged boyfriend. And in October police found the remains—apparently boiled, flesh methodically removed—of a female body near a cemetery in Nairobi.Kenyan women have had enough of the grim routine. Back in January 10,000 protesters took to the streets of Nairobi, after at least 31 women were killed in a single month. The protest sparked a sustained campaign to “end femicide”. Activists want the government to make the murder of a woman or a girl because she is female a specific crime. But misogynistic social-media influencers are stoking hate against women online. And there are signs that the violence is getting worse.Campaigners have had some success highlighting the problem. A new survey by the Ichikowitz Family Foundation, a South African charity, finds that 95% of young Kenyans are worried about violence against women, a higher proportion than in any other country in Africa bar South Africa. Several s say that femicide should be declared a national disaster.Yet a reduction in violence looks far off. A study by Africa Data Hub, a research group in Nairobi, counted more than 500 reports of femicide in the Kenyan media between 2016 and 2023, with a sharp spike between 2022 and 2023. The real number is likely to be much higher. Many crimes in Kenya are never reported to the police; only the most heinous killings make the news. “We can assume this is just the tip of the iceberg,” says Irungu Houghton of Amnesty International, a human-rights group.If anything, things seem to have worsened in 2024. The number of reported rapes has increased by 40% compared with 2023, according to the government’s latest national-security report (though some of this may be down to improved reporting). Kenya’s deputy police chief notes 97 women were murdered in just the three months up to November, though it is unclear how many were killed on account of their sex. “Every single day you wake up and a woman has been killed somewhere,” says Muthoni Maingi, a leading campaigner.Change is likely to be slow. In Kenya, as in many African countries, patriarchal values are entrenched. According to the latest demographic and health survey, more than a third of Kenyan women have experienced violence. Some 13% have experienced sexual violence. As elsewhere, the main perpetrators are intimate partners. Three-quarters of femicides counted by Africa Data Hub were committed by men who knew their victims.Economic trends may have made things worse. In 2020, when covid-19 lockdowns slowed the economy, incidents of violence against women went up by more than 90%, according to Kenya’s National Crime Research Centre. Since then the economy has struggled; 67% of those under the age of 34 have no regular job. For men for whom “money is connected to his status as a man”, economic frustration may make them lash out against women in their lives, says Onyango Otieno, another activist.Male anger is also being stoked online. A network of misogynistic influencers has exploded in recent years. Figures such as Amerix (whose real name is Eric Amunga) and Andrew Kibe boast huge followings of young men, to whom they offer advice on how to be “real men” and control their wives and girlfriends. Though no direct link can be drawn between individual murders and specific online influencers, Kenya’s “manosphere” “rationalise[s] women’s murders as part of disciplining women back into their traditional roles,” argues Awino Okech of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.On December 10th women were back on the streets of Nairobi. They expect little from the government. The dispiriting truth, says Wangui Kimari, an academic, is that in Kenya “it is easy to kill a woman, and get away with it.”
