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Kenya
Pre-elections
In the weeks running up to the presidential elections in the Kenya, reported incidents of violence against women candidates for political positions - both civic and parliamentary - increased at an alarming rate, while the actual figure is feared to be much higher because many other cases went unreported by the media.
Violence against women candidates is the one thing that all the political parties- particularly the big ones, have in common. Women are targeted simply because they are women. Many do not control the resources necessary for personal security, a fact that is verified by many of those who triumphed in the party nominations in the run-up to the elections.
Though women candidates were as vulnerable to violence as the male presidential candidates, the government chose to give security to the latter while ignoring the former, who have became a critical component of the 2007 general elections. The government needs to be reminded that it has an obligation to protect any person or group of persons whose civil and political rights are threatened. Despite civil society organisations insistence that the government fulfil its obligation to protect any person or group of persons whose civil and political rights are threatened, regardless of their political affiliation, very little was done to protect the women candidates, and perpetrators enjoyed impunity even if they were identified by their victims.
Alice Onduto: a woman candidate who lost in the Lugari ODM parliamentary nominations was shot three times at close range as she sat in the back of her car waiting for her house gate to be opened in Nairobi on the 31st November 2007. Nothing was stolen by the attackers, who fled after opening fire.
Worse still is that the violence is not only inflicted on candidates themselves, but also on female family members of male candidates…
Wife and daughters of the Kisauni Parliamentary candidate and their maid: raped, and beaten by the opponents.
Post elections
More than 500 people have died and approximately 250,000 have been driven from their homes in ethnic violence since Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential election on December 30. Local and international poll observers said the presidential results were not credible because of large irregularities in the tallying of votes at election headquarters.
Gathoni: 28 years old, a vegetable hawker who lived, until the elections, with a friend Joanne and her seven-year-old, Eric, in the sprawling Kibera slum a mile away, they now have nowhere to go and no way of making a living. 'Men threw stones which cut Eric's mouth,' Gathoni, said, explaining why she fled her home. 'They said that Kibaki stole the election and that they did not want to see any Kikuyus [Kibaki's ethnic group] in Kibera. They chased us away and took everything in the house."
Rape has also been on the rise since the declaration of controversial results of the presidential elections. Amid the violence that engulfed several residential areas of the Kenyan capital, women in particular have been targetted, with at least one hospital reporting a rise in the number of rape victims seeking treatment. The Nairobi Women's Hospital said it had on 31 December received 19 rape cases, almost double the daily average.
"It looked like it was mainly systematic gang rapes," said Sam Thenya, the chief executive officer of the hospital. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," he said, adding that those who made it to the hospital had spoken of other rape survivors who could not seek treatment because the security situation prevented them from venturing out of the informal settlements or they lacked transport.
The rape victims in Nairobi came mainly from the slums of Kibera, Korogocho, Mathare and Dandora, according to Thenya. Violence has pitted mainly Odinga's supporters against communities perceived to have voted for Kibaki, with cases of reprisal attacks also being reported.
Sources:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76068
Last modified 2008-01-25 07:41 PM
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