Post-election sexual violence victims await justice 11 years on
Some victims of the 2007/2008 post-election violence who were repatriated from Uganda. Eleven years after the traumatic events, compensation for women who were raped during the upheaval remains unaddressed. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- The health and rehabilitation needs of the women are yet to be addressed.
- Victims who spoke at the event said the government had failed to help them as earlier promised.
- Others are living with HIV/Aids and other sexually transmitted infections.
Eleven years after the traumatic events of the 2007/08 post-election violence, compensation for women who were raped during the upheaval remains unaddressed.
Further, the health and rehabilitation needs of the women are yet to be addressed.
This came up Friday during an event organised to celebrate the 10th birthday of the children born out of the sexual violations.
Victims who spoke at the event said the government had failed to help them as earlier promised.
They gave emotional accounts of what happened to them, saying they are still living with flashbacks, nightmares, mental disorders and secondary abuse by their husbands.
Ms Getrude Kinyua, a nurse at Kenyatta National Hospital’s Gender-Based Violence Centre, which has been assisting the victims, said some of them are still being treated for fistula occasioned by the forceful nature of the violations.
Others are living with HIV/Aids and other sexually transmitted infections.
LITTLE RESOURCES
“It has been 11 years and sometimes there are not enough resources dedicated to such protracted problems,” she said.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) Vice-Chair George Morara urged the government to treat the issue with the same gravity that it treats economic losses.
According to KNCHR, there are about 900 documented survivors of sexual violence in 2007/08. The agency is party to two court cases seeking compensation for the victims.
About the post-poll cases, Mr Morara said: “The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions held that none of the files documented had sufficient evidence to warrant prosecutions."
Mr Marcella Favretto, a senior human rights adviser with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for the perpetrators to be investigated and prosecuted, and for the government to support victims.
The UN urged the government to fast-track the development of a reparation framework that can put to effect the pledge of the Sh10 billion restorative justice fund made by President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2015.
Kenya Medical Women Association chairperson Dr Christine Sadia said her group was training doctors to get forensic evidence to help catch the culprits.
