For the past year I have been working in Kenya with Mary (a pseudonym) and the organization she created, to help women victims of sexual violence file complaints about police misconduct related to their cases. Mary herself was turned away from a police station during the 2007-08 Kenyan post-election crisis, when she tried to report being raped. The police officer on duty told her that rape was not a serious crime. Nine months later, she became a mother.
This was far from an isolated case. According to the International Center of Transitional Justice (ICTJ), many women had similar experiences with the Kenyan police during the post-election violence. Some women were raped by police officers, and there were no investigations or prosecutions, even in cases where women could identify their perpetrator.
“There are too many examples where police fail to respond or protect our rights and leave us vulnerable and in a state of insecurity,” Mary says. “They’re trained to use force and brutality to enforce the law or peace. And more than that, they use rape as a weapon of intimidation.”
