•Health CAS Mercy Mwangangi noted that the government is committed to eliminate all cases of gender-based violence.
•The number of victims between January and June in 2020 rose to 10,900 females and 717 males.
Image: FILE
The number of men and women who feel unsafe in their homes due to abuse by partners is rising.
The Ministry of Gender said while there was a spike in cases of domestic violence during the lockdown in 2020, this violence has continued even after the measures were eased.
Gender PS Collete Suda said cases of Gender-Based Violence recorded in the first months of 2021 were nearly double those of 2020.
She spoke during the ongoing gender-based violence prevention and response scientific conference at the Kenya School of Government in Nairobi.
Prof Suda said from January to June 2020, 7,291 females and 500 males reported being abused by intimate people. The figures are from the Kenya Health Information System.
The number of victims between January and June 2021 rose to 10,997 females and 717 males.
Prof Suda said the numbers have actually been rising since 2019.
"The number of Gender-Based Violence cases recorded between January and June 2020 had increased by 92.2 per cent compared to those between January and December the previous year. This is according to the National Crime Research Centre,” she said.
She also noted that Judiciary in April 2020 that sexual offences constituted 35.8 per cent of reported cases handled within the judiciary.
"Subsequently, on July 6, 2020, during the ninth state address, His Excellency the President pronounced himself on this matter. The President acknowledged the increasing tensions within homes," Suda said.
NCRC says the most common forms of GBV recorded in 2020 were murder, sexual offences, defilement, grievous harm, attempted defilement, sexual abuse, physical abuse and child marriage.
Health CAS Mercy Mwangangi noted that the government is committed to eliminating all cases of gender-based violence.
“We have a clear political commitment from the president and from all policyholders and leaders,” she said.
President Uhuru in June last year promised the government would work to end GBV including sexual violence by 2026.
A study by the National Gender and Equality Commission and UN Women in 2016 explored the economic burden of GBV and found that survivors and their families incur heavy costs because of this.
“The average cost of medical-related expenses per survivor and family amounted to Sh16,464,” the study said.
This was inclusive of reporting the incident to the chief and community structures and the police where they had to cough up, on average, Sh3,111 and Sh3,756 respectively.
Survivors of GBV and their families also suffer productivity loss with minor injuries amounting to Sh18,623 of loss and Sh223,476 from serious injuries.
“Productivity loss from premature mortality from GBV at present value was Sh5,840,664,” the study found.
The average medical-related expenses per household were Sh3,417 after extremely high costs were removed.
The weighted cost of GBV incidents per survivor and family was estimated at Sh24,797 annually.
“At the National level, the annual medical-related expense in terms of out-of-pocket, which is money a survivor or the family paid out of their own financial resources, was estimated at Sh10 billion annually,” the study said.
This is money that could have been channelled somewhere else.
The productivity loss from serious injuries was estimated at about Sh25 billion and from minor injuries at Sh8 billion.
The total loss amounts to Sh46 billion which translates to about 1.1 per cent of Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).