The recent killings of witches in Kisii might sound mundane, but it is another form of Gender Based Violence where victims’ mainly old women are being targeted under the pretence that they are witches. Yet, since the eight women and 3 men were killed, there has not been any arrest or someone condemning the heinous action.

The above cases are just examples which show how GBV is being experienced differently and one sad thing, the majority of the victims are women and girls who in most cases suffer in silence or are silent because they are dead. 

Although the fight against the gender based violence is being addressed by many organizations including the Government, a lot still needs to be done not to mention the conflict based violence where during the post election crisis many women were raped and molested. 

The problem of GBV is multi faceted and it manifests itself in the form of physical, psychological and other social-economic violations of survivors. The causes of this violence have been identified as poverty, lack of security and external and internal armed conflicts within Kenya and other social cultural factors like retrogressive cultural practices.

The fact that Gender Based Violence is associated with women makes the problem to be seen as a woman’s thing and many have never connected it with the bigger impact on economic development in Kenya.

And yet if one was to look critically in terms of the cost, the findings can show that GBV affected every fabric of our society. The more the government  neglects the issue of violence against women especially in the context of AIDS, the ordinary Kenyans’ tax money is being spent on expenditure  and things such as psychological counselling and medical treatment such as emergency room care, hospitalisations and treatment for STIs and  time spend in police stations making complaints and attending court.

Other costs include running rescue centres and shelters and of training and maintaining staff, the economic cost of lost labour due to women’s stress and physical distress and cost of orphans and vulnerable children who are left by women who die of AIDS is enormous to a developing country such as Kenya.

The costs of continuing to neglect this issue will far exceed any investment today being made and there is urgent need for the Government to start looking at the problem holistically.

Even though the Sexual Offences Act is in place and can be used to address the problem, Section 37 of the Act criminalises interference with evidence relating to a commission of a crime and this puts the burden of proof on the victim. There is also discrepancy between the penal code and the Children’s Act.  While the Children’s Act puts the age of majority at 18, the Penal Code puts it at 16. There is also a departure in the way the two treat traditional harmful practices, with specific reference to female genital mutilation.

And the fact that these laws are not harmonised, makes hard to tackle the problems around GBV comprehensively. Therefore an integrated approach in addressing the GBV should be developed, which will not only looks into new and emerging GBV issues including armed conflict, HIV/AIDS and globalisation but also coming up with a national framework.

Although there have been consultations on the National Framework on GBV spearheaded by formerly the Ministry of Gender and Children, the consultations should go a step further to include community leaders where issues around harmful cultural practices can be addressed.

By co-owning such a framework with the Civil Society and  the people of Kenya,  which spells out action areas and resource allocation is when the Government can be able to tell the women of Kenya that they  understand the pain the majority of them have been undergoing through.