Thirteen years and more than 6,000 miles from where Agnes Wanjiru was allegedly killed by a British soldier, her niece, Esther Njoki, sits in a wooden-panelled committee room in the Houses of Parliament. Portraits of long-dead dignitaries glower from the red, green and gold walls, as she addresses MPs, lawyers, journalists and campaigners for military justice. Her message for the British Army is clear: it must change its culture, so no more families suffer as hers has done.
“If we can change the culture of the army, we can protect future generations of women and girls,” she insists. “We can’t bring Agnes back. But we can protect other women.”
Wanjiru was 21 when she disappeared after leaving a hotel bar frequented by British soldiers based at the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK), near the city of Nanyuki, in 2012. It would be nearly three months before her family discovered her body in a septic tank. Seven years later, a Kenyan inquest ruled that a British soldier had unlawfully killed her.
