Government inaction encouraging sexual violence during protests

On the eve of the June 25, 2025, protests, I received a call from a survivor of the 2007–2008 post-election violence. She told me she was terrified and wanted to move to a safer place. She said she had heard rumours that certain individuals, believed to be mobilised, were planning to attack women and blame the violence on peaceful demonstrators. 

Despite her efforts to alert the authorities, her warnings were met with inaction. In the end, it was not the State but concerned individuals who stepped in and helped relocate her to a temporary place of safety, a decision that, given what unfolded, may have shielded her from unimaginable harm.

Scrolling through X in the days that followed, I encountered post after post from accounts, some faceless, others emboldened, openly fantasising about sexually assaulting protesters as a way of "teaching them a lesson". One particular video on TikTok and other platforms captured a woman being sexually assaulted in what appeared to be somewhere along Thika Road. Had it not been for the intervention of a few strangers, the country would be grappling with yet another tragedy rather than a trending clip.

Later, one of the online users questioned why the woman had attended a protest wearing a dress. I thought this was a protest, not a battleground where women had to dress 'properly' to avoid being raped. We forget too fast that it is the duty of the state to protect its citizens.

When Usikimye, a grassroots agency working with survivors of sexual violence, reported that at least 14 women had been raped during the Gen Z protests, and when the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights confirmed four cases in their own reporting, I realised that although the numbers might not align, they both tell us that sexual violence did happen, that survivors are living with those memories now, and that these experiences cannot and should not be buried beneath the weight of statistical discrepancies.

Independent and thorough investigations must be launched to determine why State institutions, despite having prior knowledge and intelligence, failed to prevent these acts of violence. They were neither spontaneous nor unexpected but part of a recurring pattern that history has laid out for us.

The 2008 Waki Commission of Inquiry established that the State had credible intelligence on the operations of militia groups, yet instead of dismantling them or acting to prevent violence, it chose to either to look away or to act too late. The result was a wave of ethnically-driven attacks, many involving sexual violence, that left communities devastated.

The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission would later confirm that State security agencies not only failed to intervene during these attacks but, in some cases, were directly complicit, allowing sexual violence to be used as a political weapon, a tool for asserting dominance, instilling fear, and punishing perceived opposition.

By the 2022 elections, thing had not changed and civil society organisations complained about politically motivated sexual violence. The official response, once again, was fragmented, reactive, and lacking both political will and institutional clarity, setting the stage for yet another cycle of violence without accountability.

As young people engaged in peaceful protests to demand economic justice, police reform, and political transparency this year, we once again witnessed a state that not only failed to protect its citizens but also appeared to repeat  the very patterns of inaction and impunity that have characterised past political crises.

What we are experiencing is the breakdown of a system that has, for far too long, treated sexual violence during political unrest not as a crime requiring justice but as a regrettable by-product of public disorder, a narrative that must be rejected.

If we do not demand justice, if do not hold those responsible to account, we will be sending a dangerous message that survivors of sexual violence do not matter. If we let silence to win now, we will be helping to build the right conditions for the next wave of similar violence.