97 women killed in the last three months - Police

Close to 100 women and girls have been killed in the last three months as the femicide crisis escalates.

This is according to the National Police Service (NPS) and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) which said the murder and manslaughter cases have been steadily increasing in the last two years, and vowed to tackle the problem.

The police's admission of the gravity of the situation comes amidst calls for accountability and increased prosecution of perpetrators of these crimes. 

The numbers, coming from no less than the government's security agency and the gender ministry, paint a grim picture of the status of the safety of women and girls across the country.

"In the last three months alone, the country has reported 97 cases of femicide," said Deputy Inspector General of Police Eliud Langat at a presser on Wednesday.

"This troubling trend highlights the urgent need for focused action and collaboration to tackle the widespread problem of gender-based violence in society."

Gender and Affirmative Action Principal Secretary Anne Wang’ombe acknowledged that changing societal realities are also contributing to these worrying numbers.

"People are watching movies where killing is not such a big deal; people are also dealing with economic issues, global recession," PS Wang’ombe stated.

Indeed, the killing of women and children has become a critical issue in the country, with non-state actors calling the attention of the government to this issue.

"Declare this a national disaster and a national crisis… We should treat femicide as stand-alone crimes," FIDA deputy executive director Janet Onyango noted on Tuesday.

According to statistics from the African Data Hub, the number of femicide cases has been growing from 20 in 2016 to a peak of 95 in 2018 and 75 last year.

The police numbers, however, indicate that this could be the worst year for women and girls as far as femicide is concerned. The police say they are handling the reported cases according to the law.

"It is not like they are targeting women and girls; we have established it as normal crime and will treat it as such," DCI Amin said.

At the same time, the police say they are still on the search for the prime suspect in the Kware murders, Collins Jumaisi.

He is suspected of having murdered at least eleven women, whose bodies were pieced together from 17 body parts retrieved from the quarry.