Dear politician, it’s our lives on the line, give us a peaceful poll

Martha Nyanchama at her home in Marani Sub-county, Kisii. She lost her husband in Sotik to the 2007 post-poll chaos. Many women in IDP camps are wary of elections because the discussion opens up their wounds.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Nafasi has no idea whether her husband, whom she last saw in 2007,  is still alive or dead.
  • In 2017, during the poll chaos that rocked Obunga slum, two men in police uniform, raped Nafasi in the presence of her daughter.
  • Benna Buluma’s two sons were caught in the fire during protests that followed claims of election fraud in 2017.
  • Anxiety among the women and girls in Naivasha as poll day beckons is indescribable.

In 2007 at the heat of the post-poll violence, Nafasi, fled to Kisumu from Nakuru, 189.4 kilometres away.

Her name has been changed to protect her from further harm.

To date, she has no idea whether her husband is alive or dead. She escaped with her infant daughter. Unfortunately, she had nowhere to go since she was an orphan. And so, she ended up at Obunga slums in Kisumu.

Then in 2017, during the poll chaos that rocked the slum, two men whom she says wore police uniforms and rocked dreadlocks, raped her in the presence of her daughter. They also forced her to watch as they defiled her.

Nothing dries up her flesh and bones like a mention of an election. She suffers from panic attacks whenever she hears people talk about election.

Some 344 kilometres away from Kisumu another woman in Mathare slums in Nairobi County is in pain thanks to the 2017 skirmishes.

Benna Buluma’s two sons were caught in the fire during protests that followed claims of election fraud by the then Orange Democratic Movement leader Raila Odinga.

According to Ms Buluma, her sons were killed by police who used live bullets to disperse the protesters at Mathare Number 10.

In the neighbouring sub-county, Kibra, Neno, is still traumatised from the rape she suffered when chaos rocked the slum in 2017. Following the incident, she lost her child whom she had to prematurely deliver and turned out HIV-positive.

Until today, she asks herself, “why did this happen to me?”

Benna Buluma shows bullet holes on a sheet metal wall, which she says were left by police who used live bullets to disperse poll protesters in the slum in Nairobi County on August 9, 2017. She lost two sons.

Photo credit: Moraa Obiria | Nation Media Group

These are real-life experiences of women who have suffered because of poll-related chaos.

In Naivasha, Eunice Maina, senior program officer at Life Bloom Services International, a Naivasha-based non-profit organisation working with at-risk women and children, says the anxiety among the women and girls in the area is indescribable.

“Some households have secretly travelled back to their rural homes and others are planning to,” she says.

The worry over job security is also depressing.

“Most of the women here work at the flower farms and the pay cannot even afford them a decent life (but they still need the job to keep going) and they are wondering what will happen after the election”.”

The abrupt closure of schools on Monday by the Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha, has further worsened their anxiety, she says.

“One, they are worried of how they are going to feed them, and secondly, whether they are going to be safe at home,” she says.

She adds that those in the Internally Displaced Persons camps “don’t want to hear of an election,” because the discussion opens up their wounds.

Six counties

For now, the organisation is creating awareness through community forums calling on everyone to maintain peace “because, after the election, we will remain neighbours.”

“Walk in peace and be the peace that you want,” she appeals.

National Cohesion and Integration Commission has flagged six counties likely to experience electoral violence including Nairobi, Nakuru, Kericho, Kisumu, Uasin Gishu and Mombasa.

In Kisumu County, Stawisha Dada (Stada) a human rights organisation, is effortlessly campaigning against violence.

Already, it is counselling more than 50 women in Obunga, Manyatta and Nyalenda slums, who were sexually abused in 2007 and 2017.

Stada director Patricia Nudi, says the violated women feel helpless “because no one has been prosecuted for the crimes, neither has the government acknowledged the crimes committed against them nor visited the affected areas to listen to their plight.”

Presently, she says communities in the affected areas distrust the police and would prefer not to report any abuse “because in any case they are the perpetrators.”

“The reality is that there are some bad police and some good police who are out to protect them,” she says.

To foster trust, her organisation has held community forums in which they invite the police to speak with them and educate them on early warning signs, and where to get help in case of an assault including calling the national helpline 1195.


They also plan a peace caravan on the Nandi-Kisumu and Kisumu-Kericho borders, before the August 9 General Election.

“Every time the women share their experiences, they cry. By the end of the session, they will have transferred the pain to me and I cry too. We can’t afford to have more women crying in this nation.”

A 2012 study Triggers and Characteristics of the 2007 Kenyan Electoral Violence that used two surveys conducted before and after the election, found that one out of three Kenyans was affected by the violence regardless of their ethnicity and wealth.

And the chances of being a victim of violence were higher in areas with land conflicts and where politically-connected gangs operated.

Social capital

Of the triggers, the study cited perception that the election had been rigged, increased support toward lawlessness, reduced trust and social capital among communities.

Unfortunately, in the current political status, these triggers are slowly growing their tentacles. From accusations of one political leader claiming plans to kill him, to voter rigging allegations.

Human rights watchdogs have also linked ferocious gangs terrorising slum residents in Nakuru County to politicians preparing them to cause mayhem in areas where they are less popular.

All these point to pre-emptive violence, which would them bolt into reactive violence, where the candidates and their supporters reject the results and resort to violence.

Painfully so, women and girls find themselves in the middle of the battle and suffer the most.

“Women and girls are disproportionally affected by the virtue of the fact that their population is higher than that of men and boys,” says Judy Gitau, regional coordinator, Africa for Equality Now.

And violation of women has a ripple effect. It undermines their bodily autonomy while at the same time, the fear of a similar attack scares other women away from polling stations, thereby taking away their civic rights, she says.

In 2021, President Uhuru Kenyatta committed to 12 targets at the Paris-held Generation Equality Forum, whose outcomes would greatly boost prevention and response to sexual violence. But there has not been a progress report availed to the public to track its steps.

“It is good that (President Kenyatta) has made the commitments but it is time to move from issuing statements to tangible actions,” says Ms Gitau.