Flowers are not beautiful on a casket

Almost 20,000 femicides were registered in Africa in 2022. According to the United Nations, this is the highest rate in the world.

Femicide, the murder of women because of their gender, is often committed by husbands, boyfriends or ex-partners and usually preceded by physical, emotional and sexual abuse. 

In 2022 there are said to have been 725 femicides in Kenya. In 2024, after 31 women had already been killed at the beginning of the year ten thousand people marched through the streets of Nairobi. The demonstration with the hashtag #darkvalentine was the largest non-political protest in Kenyan history. 

With a grant by DSW (Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung) writer Tobias Asmuth and I travelled to Nairobi in July 2024. We met men and women who are the forefront of fighting GBV and femicides in Kenya. Amongst them Eric Onyango Otieno, Kenya's best-known feminist, activist, poet & positive masculinity influencer.

Femicide is of course a global problem. We chose Kenya not only because the figures in Africa are unfortunately particularly bad, but because we think more people should know about what Eric Onyango is doing in Kenya.