Death of Rebecca Cheptegei: 'Femicide rampant in Kenya'

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00:00latest horrific act of gender-based violence in the East African country

00:04where activists have warned of a rising femicide epidemic

00:08and are calling for long-overdue action.

00:11JR Emigwe is the founder of Osikimie,

00:14an organization that fights gender-based violence.

00:18This is the fourth murder in a series of murders from 2021

00:23for female athletes.

00:24But this is also another, I will not call it murder,

00:27I will call it femicide because femicide is the intentional murdering of women

00:30due to their gender and also intimate femicide,

00:34which is what happened in this case.

00:35If you look at the intentionality of the murders between all these athletes

00:41who have been murdered by their husbands, boyfriends or partners,

00:44if you look at it, there is a thread of financial finances,

00:49the fact that these women have been able to be on the prime of their life,

00:52been able to amass wealth,

00:54and this wealth, unfortunately, has led to their death.

00:57Femicide has been rampant in this country.

00:59I remember in the beginning of this year, on 27th of January,

01:02us Kenyans and us Kenyan women,

01:04and thank God for the Kenyan public as well,

01:06we did a femicide march on 27th of January

01:09where we were demanding for the government to speak about

01:13and also act upon incidents of femicide.

01:16By that time, we had 32 cases of dead women in one month.

01:20As we're looking at, reported cases are 112 as of this month.

01:24That is a lot of women who have died.

01:26You see, if we don't act upon something,

01:28what are the repercussions when these women are killed?

01:31When Agnes Tirop was killed, the case is still in court.

01:35When Damaris was killed, the man disappeared.

01:39When...

01:42And all this, I'm looking at athlete cases.

01:43I'm also looking at cases that have happened yet,

01:45and still we have not seen the pursuance of justice.

01:49We have not seen the stance of the nation against femicide.

01:53If the head of the nation, the president,

01:55does not say anything about femicide,

01:57how are we going to treat it?

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