• Counting Dead Women Kenya is a database that counts the reported number of Kenyan girls and women killed through violence.
• On Tuesday, the government announced that cases of sexual and gender-based violence have tripled amid the war on the coronavirus.
Infants and teenagers are increasingly becoming victims of physical and sexual gender-based violence, reports from Counting Dead Women Kenya show.
Counting Dead Women Kenya is a database that counts the reported number of Kenyan girls and women killed through violence.
According to the database, 16 women and girls have been killed through acts of sexual and physical violence between January 1 and March 23.
On February 7, a woman and her husband allegedly strangled their newborn to death in Umoja estate, Bomet. The mother, 32, and father, 36, were also accused of dumping the body in a pit latrine.
The couple, who have three other children and are casual labourers, confessed to the crime, saying they chose to kill the child because they had no money to take care of her.
In another incident, an 18-month-old child who went missing on February 8, 2020, was found dead in a vacant self-contained house in Kitengela. Her parents reported her missing to Kitengela police station.
The child was found dead four days later. It is suspected the child was defiled because she was found naked save for her top.
Reports made by her father indicate the vacant house her body was found in is only three doors from their apartment.
The caretaker is said to be the only one with a key to the vacant house and was seen going in several times that week.
According to the database, no arrests have been made over the child's death.
In another case, Catherine Nasimiyu, 16, left home on December 25, 2019, without saying where she was going. Her body was found in Mawe Tatu sublocation by children who were playing near a stream in February.
Nasimiyu, who had just completed primary school, had been seen by friends at the market a few days prior when she promised she would return home but did not disclose where she was staying.
Her body was found five days after that of 13-year-old Lucy Wanjiru, a standard six pupil was found at Moi's Bridge Township.
Wanjiru was defiled then murdered before her body was dumped.
Caroline Naliaka, the mother of the deceased is a vegetable vendor at Moi’s Bridge market. She said she had sent Wanjiru to sell the vegetables when she met her death.
In another incident, the body of a 10-year-old girl was found dumped along the railway lines in Moi's Bridge in January.
The girl was found with blood oozing from her genitalia, an indication she may have been defiled before being strangled to death after her mother sent her to a nearby shop.
On Tuesday, the government announced that cases of sexual and gender-based violence have tripled amid the war on the coronavirus.
Health CAS Mercy Mwangangi said data from the Gender Violence Recovery Centre and the National Council on Administration of Justice has shown that in the past week there has been an increase in GBV and sexual violence cases.
Most of the time, the violence has been perpetrated by close relatives and guardians.
Edited by A.N