Dear Government, #Selfies, #Speeches, #"IThink", #DressingInFullCombatGears, Won't adress the Runaway Insecrity in Kenya. Action will

Dear Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta , I vividly remember on 9th April, 2013, (during your inauguration and in your speech), you said this and I quote “Criminals, cattle rustlers, drug barons and agents of terror who disrupt the peace of our society will be met with the full force of the law and the strength of Kenya’s Security Forces. On this matter, we are resolute to our men and women in uniform, I say, this nation is indebted to you. You continue to lay down your lives in service, protecting Kenyans from threats both external and internal. My government will continue to work with you and do all that is in its power to support you as you continue in your noble duty (the speech goes on)…”

The question I beg to ask is what happened?

The ongoing state of insecurity in the country is becoming untenable and pervasive.

The government is losing its grip on Insecurity in northern Kenya. The recent Massacres that has hit Mandera highlights precisely the type of political and social fault lines within our security system and calls for the overhaul of security leadership as well as structures. Yet, despite these worrying trends, the Kenyan government and its partners are still fixated largely on #Selfies, #speeches #HashTags and the cases against President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto. This risks overlooking the potential for the prevailing insecurity to lead to state fragility. In a nutshell, we are alarmed at the recent levels of runaway insecurity experienced in the country. There is security alarm as gangsters, muggers have take over Nairobi city. From daylight shootouts to frequent muggings, the city centre is fast degenerating into a gangster’s den. Vulture-eyed pickpockets and muggers targeting pedestrians roam every city corner while smash-and-grab attacks targeting motorists are equally on the rise. A puzzle to most victims is that the criminals, who range from seemingly experienced thieves to impulsive vandals, operate with a high degree of impunity.

Kenyans voted for a new constitutional dispensation in August 2010, which we did; yes with so much anticipation that we were bestowing unto ourselves, a new governance indenture moored on a well-founded and firm footing that would ensure that as Kenyans we are in a position, and to the chock-full level conceivable, enjoy all the Socio-economic and political rights entrenched in the constitution. Looking at our Constitution, this one is not debatable.  Clearly, it guarantees Kenyans of their security. Article 29 of the Constitution says, and I quote that: “Every person has the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes the right not to be: c) subjected to any form of violence form either public or private sources”. Correspondingly, Article 26 of the same Constitution is sparkling clear that “Every person has the right to life”. Looking at this, the Constitution thus provides a structure of the key establishments and players who have been endowed the constitutional fiat of guaranteeing that we are all safe and secure. No doubt about that, Chapter fourteen of our constitution clearly spells this out.

And on this juncture, I call upon you; yes you Mr. President Kenyatta and your Deputy, Hon. William Rutto, I.G Kimaiyo and the so many Senior Security officials in your government to assure Kenyans of their security as per what is entrenched in the Constitution. In lieu of what you pledged to the Nation during your inauguration speech.

CC

William Samoei Ruto Inspector General of Police, KenyaJoseph Ole Lenku

16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence

WHAT IS THE 16 DAYS ACTIVISM?

• The 16 days of activism is a global Crusade to oppose Sexual and gender Based Violence against women and children. The sole purpose of the campaign is raise awareness of the adverse impact that violence and cruelty have on women and children and to free society of abuse perpetually.
• The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign that starts on 25 November 2014. Commonly known as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, it will end on 10 December, which is the Human Rights Day. The campaign hopes to raise awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue at the local, national, regional and international level. This year’s theme is “Let’s challenge militarism and end violence against women”. During the 16 Days of Activism, I will focus on ending violence against women and girls in Kenya.
• The 16 Days Campaign is an international campaign that started in 1991. Since then, over 5,179 groups in 187 countries have taken part. In Ireland last year, over 140 groups took part in the National Balloon Action or organised other events like art competitions, exhibitions, memorials, film showings, postcard and poster campaigns, information stands and media campaigns.
• The 16 Days Campaign provides us all-community groups, students, rape crisis centres and domestic violence support services, political pressure groups and individual activists, each and every one of us-with the opportunity to break the silence around domestic violence. By organising events in our local communities that highlight the issue of domestic violence and promote the services available for women, we make the issue visible, we give hope to women who are suffering and we hold perpetrators of abuse to account.

Why The 16 days and why between November 25th to December 10th Every year?

The 16 Days of Action run from 25th November, UN International Day of Elimination of Violence against Women, to 10th December, Human Rights Day. The campaign spans these 16 Days in order to highlight the link between violence against women and human rights. Today, women and girls are subjected to many forms of human rights violations solely on the basis of their gender.

The 16 Days period includes other significant dates like International Human Rights Defenders Day (29th November), World Aids Day (1st December) and the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre (6th December).

The aims of the Campaign: Why the campaign?

The 16 Days Campaign is an opportunity for individuals and groups around the world to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women by:

• Increase women's safety
• Highlighting the nature and prevalence of violence against women
• Raising awareness of violence against women as a human rights issue
• Showing solidarity among women around the world
• Promoting women's leadership
• Lobbying government
• Strengthening local work to tackle violence against women

CAUSES OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

It happens when men abuse their power and positions of authority in order to control women and children.

Here are the major causes of SGBV in Kenya and perhaps similar to other parts of the world.

·  Social norms and culture - The root causes of sexual and gender-based violence lie in a society’s attitudes towards and practices of gender discrimination, which place women in a subordinate position in relation to men 

·  Patriarchy – male dominance, power and control that lies on what culture defines masculinity to be. 

·  Drug and substance abuse – as a contributing factor to the root causes 

·  Poverty- perpetrating hopelessness in a society and idleness 

·  Lack of respect for human rights – lack of information on this and abuse of the same. 

·  War and Conflicts- especially when sexual violence is used as a weapon 

·  Cultural Altitudes – peoples negative perceptions and beliefs

Don't be a victim!

• BREAK THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE
• BREAK THE SILENCE
• KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
• ACT AGAINST ABUSE
• DO NOT LOOK AWAY!

KEY DATES TO WATCH OUT DURING THE CAMPAIGN PERIOD:

25 November: International Day of No Violence Against Women
29 November: International Women Human Rights Defenders Day
1 December: World Aids Day
3 December: International Day for the Disabled
10 December: International Human Rights Day

Why should we fight Female Genital Mutilation?

Too many of our girls face the oppression of FGM... 

Just think of a young girl going through this, unknowingly or without her permission to, in essence, change her life forever. It is said that FGM is to preserve the virginity of the girls and to keep them pure until marriage but it is really taking their spirit away.

We are an enormously diverse country and we welcome the diversity of traditions, but we don't welcome oppression or the denial of human rights. We may always assume that FGM is an African problem. No it's not; its a global problem.

The recent Global summit that happened few months ago to end sexual violence in London was unique in its ambition; not only in efforts to bring sexual violence in conflict zones to an end, but also in attempting to engage the public in a challenging issue about which they had little prior knowledge and mostly no personal experience or connection. The public came to learn about the impact of Sexual Gender Based Violence in conflict, and the work that's being done to stop it; as survivors conveyed their stories, there was a powerful sense that together, people from around the world were standing up against the perpetrators of these crimes.

Understanding and fostering this sense of solidarity is important in opening with a focus on violence against women and girls and, in particular, female genital mutilation (FGM).

FGM is an issue that provokes strong reactions; the appearance of an 'us and them' mentality is a risk. People from communities affected by FGM may feel that other aspects of their culture are being challenged or degraded while those in unaffected communities may take FGM as evidence of 'alien' values, feeding negative stereotyping.

It’s more important that we treat FGM as we do any other human rights violation. It should be stopped, and everybody – every girl, woman, boy and man in every part of the world – can play a part in making that happen.

No-one would disagree that the movement to end FGM should be led from within  the 29 countries in which the majority of cases occur. Our focus should always be to support the work of local communities in identifying the underlying social norms that underpin FGM and challenging their persistence. But we should be clear that this doesn't – or shouldn't – mean that people in other parts of the world can't add their support.

An effective campaign gives a voice to those affected by a problem and then encourages others to amplify that voice. It recognises that rights are invalid if they are not respected universally and fought for across communities, cultures and continents.

A useful comparison here is campaigning on child marriage. Like FGM, this is an issue that does affect people in a particular country, but that does not pervade society in the same way as it does elsewhere in the world. Child marriage will only be brought to an end by campaigns driven from within the countries of prevalence. Campaigns would help a great deal in fighting the menace. It goes ahead to achieve two things: First, that people can and should care about things that don't directly affect them or even their community. Secondly, it should be clear to decision-makers in that this is an issue in which every person against the vice wants action.

Rather than, as some might argue, undermining the indigenous campaigns, these activities should be geared towards addressing the issues.

The sensitivities around FGM make the public discussion more charged, but the same logic applies to this issue as to child marriage. People shouldn't be afraid to raise their voice. Longstanding campaigners on the issue can draw strength from this support.

So when I'm asked, as I have been, "why should we' care about FGM?" my answer is clear: because it can make a difference in ending it. We have to start from home.  We have to do something in our own country before we can tell other countries what to do. We need to alert educators and counsellors on how to look for girls at risk.

The Rise of Sexual Gender Based Violence ( SGBV ). What next?

While GBV can be said to have been present in society since earliest recorded history, it is only in the past 10 years that it has been defined as and declared an international human rights issue.
This is according to Jeanne Ward, a gender-based-violence expert with the Reproductive Health Response in Conflict Consortium (RHRC). If Not addressed, Now, When?
Addressing Gender-based Violence are due to the rise of the women's and human rights movements across the world that demands that violence against women be considered an affront to basic human rights.But it is the rising number of cases of GBV and the wide-scale use of sexual violence in on-going armed conflicts among other causes of SGBV around the world that command the world's attention and drive an increased demand to see change. The increased media attention on issues of sexual violence and the establishment of a defined humanitarian sector have led to greater interest in the development of legal instruments and institutions that promote and reinforce international standards of human rights.The effect of the increased focus on GBV has been both positive and negative. Many more aid agencies, donors and local organizations have now included GBV as part, or the main focus, of their activities, resulting in more money and attention.
However, GBV experts who have been working on the issue for many years are cautious of this sudden interest, which they fear may be short-lived. If support systems are not in place for the victims "you can drown in funding that's not well used". People do not see results for all the funds spent, so they can dry up, then nobody benefits. But, at the end of the day, the legal frameworks and humanitarian assistance for victims count for very little if the authorities in places where the crimes are committed lack the power, or will, to act.No-risk environments for perpetrators Universally, gender-based violence goes largely unpunished. During conflict, violence against women becomes an excepted norm while militarisation and the increased presence of weapons result in high levels of brutality and even greater levels of impunity. Fighting the reality of impunity is critical to the reduction of GBV. At present, those committing violations in conflicts or post-conflict environments run virtually no risk of investigation let alone prosecution and punishment. A combination of social and political disorder, absence of rule of law, corruption, the lack of an impartial or functioning judiciary, and fear allow these crimes to be committed with almost total impunity. Perpetrators act in a no-risk environment. Even those trusted to keep the peace and offer stability - UN peacekeepers - are sometimes accused of sexual violations, but generally evade prosecution.

International agreements and frameworks

The defining of the international community's responsibilities in response to gender inequality and sexual violence was slow until recent years. Although statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex appeared in the original Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it is only in the last decade that the issue of sexual violence in conflict has been addressed rigorously. Various international agreements have sought to address the issue of sexual vulnerability of women in war, most notably, additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1979. But the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court in 1998 marked a turning point: it declared for the first time that "rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation, and other forms of sexual violence of comparative gravity" are to be considered war crimes. If these acts are knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, they constitute "crimes against humanity", it said.Whatever laws are drafted internationally, however, the facts on the ground remain stark, with no improvement in sight. In Rwanda it is said that almost every adolescent girl who survived the genocide of 1994 had been raped. The World Health Organization says gender-based violence accounts for more death and disability among women aged 15-44 years than cancer, malaria, traffic injuries and war combined. As long as there is no real progress on addressing the culture of impunity that surrounds sexual violence, the number of women medically and psychologically scarred for life will increase as the epidemic continues unrestrained.
The responsibility to fight SGBV lies in our hands as Individuals