When poor women are not being forcefully evicted from slums, they are getting butchered by intimate partners as the government does nothing, a report has shown.
Amnesty International in its April report, The State of World’s Human Rights, paints a grim picture of neglect of women, citing the wave of femicide and heartless evictions.
The latest spate of evictions targeted people on the way leave land in Embakasi early this year.
Between March and April last year, the global report says the government oversaw forceful eviction of more than 6,000 households in the Mathare and Mukuru Kwa Njenga informal settlements.
The demolitions came amid heavy rains and flooding. Many residents were left stranded in the mud, with no shelter, no food and no hope.
“They didn’t give us any notice,” Jane Atieno, a 39-year-old mother of four who lived in Mukuru Kwa Njenga told the lobby while compiling the report.
“They just came with bulldozers and armed police. My children were crying as we watched our house crush to the ground.”
Government officials claimed the homes were on riparian land and dangerous to inhabit. But residents say they were given no chance to relocate and were not consulted.
“We’re not against safety,” said Samuel Odhiambo, a community leader in Mathare.
“We’re against cruelty. They left people homeless in the middle of the rainy season with no plan.”
The High Court of Nairobi in November last year, ordered the government to work with residents to assess their losses and provide compensation. But as of April, no meaningful action had been taken.
At the same time, another silent crisis has been unfolding, which is violence against women.
According to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, by the end of last year, 170 women, nearly double those killed in 2023 and five times those killed in 2016, had been killed because they were women.
The lobby wants the Task Force on Gender Based Violence and the Ministry of Gender to accelerate a comprehensive set of state interventions to prevent and prosecute the cases.
It wants proposals generated by activist networks such as the EndFemicideKE and HumanIsMyID alliances taken up and implemented.
Among the victims highlighted by the report are Rita Waeni, a university student who was brutally murdered in Nairobi and Starlet Wahu, a social media personality who was killed in a short-stay apartment.
Their deaths sparked nationwide protests, with hundreds of women marching on the streets of major cities demanding action. They held placards that read “Stop Killing Us” and “Justice for Our Sisters”.
“We are tired of mourning,” said Mwikali Muthoni, one of the protest organisers. “We are not safe in our homes, we are not safe in the streets and the government is doing nothing. We want justice and we want protection.”
Despite public outcry, the Amnesty report says the government has failed to introduce urgent reforms to protect women and girls from gender-based violence. Survivors continue to be turned away from police stations or forced into silence by stigma and fear.
For women like Jane Atieno, who now lives in a makeshift shelter near a clogged drainage ditch, her message to the state is clear.
“We are not seen. We are not heard. Whether we are being beaten or bulldozed, it doesn’t matter. We are on our own.”
Instant AnalysisThe government’s twin failures — to protect women from GBV and evictions — reveal a deeper crisis of accountability. Without urgent reform, the cycle of dispossession and death will continue unchecked.
