Uasin Gishu: Residents of Uasin Gishu County turned out in numbers to submit their views and recommendations on how to reduce GBV and femicide.
According to Kenya News Agency, the residents spoke during the public participation exercise conducted by The Technical Working Group on GBV including Femicide to collect views aimed at fighting the increasing incidents of GBV and femicide in the country.
The public participation led by Myot council of elders' chairman Alex Mursi emphasized the importance of moral upbringing and proper parental guidance to children to curb cases of GBV and femicide from generation to generation. The elders argued that modern lifestyles have eroded the social norms of the communities, which defined acceptable and appropriate conduct and which people generally conformed to in order to maintain social order and avoid negative consequences.
The residents attributed poverty, illiteracy, alcohol and drug abuse, Western lifestyle influence among other issues as the chief agents fueling GBV in the county and the country at large. The public further suggested the need to enhance support for GBV survivors, including counselling for both the perpetrators and victims as one of the ways to conclusively fight the menace which has affected individuals physically, mentally, and even in their social well-being.
The Technical Working Group through the head of Secretariat, Philomena Loitareng'an, established from the public submissions that defilement, rape, assault, and physical abuse are the common forms of GBV experienced in the county. She underscored that there is still psychological trauma among the victims of GBV, including femicide as she emphasized the need for concerted efforts from both state and non-state actors in order to end femicide across the social fabric of the country.
Mercy Jepkurui, a special elect Member of the County Assembly for Uasin Gishu, reiterated the need for a penal code review to incarcerate perpetrators of GBV and femicide to bar them from returning to the community to commit the same criminal offenses. She further called for adequate funding for gender committees in order to run programmes to advocate and enlighten the community on gender issues.
The members of the public were urged to submit their memoranda online through [email protected] and were assured that all the views will be put into consideration in order to inform the final actionable recommendations to end GBV in the country. The GBV Technical Working Group, headed by former Deputy Chief Justice Dr Nancy Baraza, is tasked with the role of assessing, reviewing, and recommending measures aimed at strengthening the country's policy, legal and institutional response against the vice.
Dr Baraza urged Kenyans to present their proposals on the war against GBV, which she termed a national emergency. 'The President has directed the technical working group to provide actionable recommendations and we shall do exactly that so that this country can deal with the problem of GBV conclusively,' she said.