Report: 79 women raped in 2017 poll
A report released yesterday shows 79 women were raped during the October 2017 repeat presidential elections.
In a report by the Kenya Human Right Commission (KHRC), testimonies of women they interviewed, with an average age of 45, in Vihiga, Kisumu and Migori counties confirmed election-related Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) was perpetrated on a massive scale in those Opposition strongholds.
Commission Programmes Advisor Irene Soila said the findings also show that many of the perpetrators were police officers or men in police uniform.
“The violence was committed as part of a crackdown by security forces on protests denouncing the results of the two presidential polls, which had both ended in Uhuru Kenyatta’s declared victory,” Soila said.
She was speaking yesterday in a Nairobi hotel when she presented the report findings; Sexual Violence as a political tool during elections in Kenya, as part of calling out the Government to put in place stringent actions ahead of the August 9 polls.
She said most of the survivors interviewed by KHRC and International Federation for Human Rights said they did not file a complaint due to police’s alleged involvement in the perpetration of sexual violence.
“Most of the survivors interviewed in Vihiga and Migori said they had been raped during from October 26 to 29, 2017,” the report.
Survivors in both counties reported chaos in their area, with young men, including boda boda riders, barricading roads and throwing stones at officers, who were heavily deployed and who retaliated with tear-gas.
Local men In Vihiga, the report shows survivors reported altercations between police and local men, who were protesting the alleged involvement of a businessman in electoral malpractices.
In Migori, survivors referred to an area marred with violence after the repeat election while those in Kisumu reported clashes between police and civilians that erupted in the aftermath of the announcement of results of the first election.
The report says the survivors reported gang rape. “This is in line with data compiled by KNCHR where of all the cases documented, 19.3 per cent were raped by one perpetrator and 52.6 per cent by multiple perpetrators.
Perpetrators entered survivors’ places of work or residence, sometimes knocking at the door (cases reported in Kisumu), sometimes using force and shouting (cases reported in Migori).
Almost all the survivors reported having been raped without protection,” the report. Two survivors from Migori and Vihiga recounted what they described as horrifying moments in the hands of perpetrators.
“It is still very painful. We have lived with a lot of pain and grief and now that we are headed to another election, we are afraid of what will happen. We need adequate security,” said a survivor from Migori. Adequate security With another adding:
“Many women in Vihiga are living in fear, when they remember what happened. We were locked in our houses and had nowhere to report. We are still nursing the wounds over and we are hopeful that there will be adequate security this year during elections.”
Report further states that rape were accompanied by other forms of violence, where survivors reported being slapped, battered, gagged, strangled and being hit with objects or weapons.
“In several cases in Vihiga and Migori, survivors indicated that they had been raped in front of their relatives (husbands, children and cousins). In Kisumu, survivors reported that their husbands were either not present or had been forcibly evicted from the house by the police. Some survivors also reported having been robbed by their assailants or having witnessed the destruction of their property,” states the report.
Data was collected in July and December 2018, as FIDH and KHRC, conducted factfinding missions on election related SGBV committed in Vihiga, Kisumu and Migori counties.
