By Peaceloise Mbae
A Kenyan woman is murdered every two days, yet femicide is still not considered a crime by our justice system. We have marched, mourned, and mobilized from Nairobi to Kisumu, Mombasa, Meru, Eldoret, and Nakuru. The streets have echoed with chants and cries against femicide in Kenya. The media has done broadcasts. Hashtags have trended. Artists, musicians, influencers, and poets now use their platforms for awareness creation. Feminist organizations like Usikimye and Feminists in Kenya are pushing hard for change.
Still, women keep dying. Still, the violence continues. According to the National Police Service (NPS) and the National Crime Research Centre (NCRC), at least 129 women were killed across Kenya in the first three months of 2025. This is despite surging anti-femicide efforts, especially in the last two years.
This begs a difficult but necessary question: If protests are so visible, why does femicide in Kenya persist, becoming worse than ever?
Protests Raised Awareness, But Awareness Alone Isn’t Justice
Protests are powerful. They make our pain public. They force society to pay attention. In Kenya, the recent wave of anti-femicide protests has done exactly that. For the first time, the word femicide has entered mainstream conversations. It’s no longer just whispered in activist spaces; it’s on prime-time news and even on local vernacular radio stations.
But while visibility is a huge milestone, it’s not the same as change. Sociologist Susan Olzak outlines how protests create pressure: they signal urgency, empower communities, and put issues on the policy agenda. She, however, cautions that protests, especially when isolated or reactive, rarely produce deep policy reform.
In Kenya, we’ve seen how even sustained visibility doesn’t always translate to action. Activists like Boniface Mwangi have been showing up for protests for two decades. Yet violence persists. Corruption continues. So what’s missing?
Why Femicide Won’t End Without Systemic Uprooting
At a feminist consciousness workshop I attended last year, we talked about the “problem tree”—a tool that helped me connect the dots by mapping out social justice concerns.
The fruits are the symptoms we see: femicide, gender-based violence, murder, exploitation, and bad governance.
The trunk represents institutions: government, religious bodies, and community leaders, who support the roots.
Finally, the roots: patriarchy, misogyny, capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy. These are the systems feeding the trunk and growing the fruits.
Most activism naturally focuses on the fruits and trunk—passing new laws, holding institutions accountable. And that work is essential. But as long as the roots remain untouched, the violence will keep sprouting back in new forms. We can’t keep plucking the fruits and expect the tree to die.
What If Calling Men Out Isn’t Working? Rethinking Our Advocacy
As a digital activist and influencer engaged in anti-femicide work, I’ve seen this firsthand: the people we most need to reach, like government institutions, clergy, and men, often respond with defensiveness, not empathy. Content that calls out femicide tends to be angry, reactive (for good reason), and accusatory. But it often triggers backlash and shuts down dialogue. I’ve lost count of how many times men flood the comments section with dismissive or victim-blaming rhetoric. It’s exhausting and counterproductive. That is why I took a step back. If we want real change, we need new strategies.
We need to shift from confrontation to conversation. That means engaging trusted community voices. Reframing our language to emphasize positive masculinity by creating a safe space for dialogue. Studies show that when men are invited into non-judgmental spaces to discuss gender-based violence, they’re more likely to intervene and hold others accountable. That’s the shift we need.
Hope, Strategy, and the Long Road Ahead
I, too, share in the urgency and frustration that many activists experience when organizing protests and campaigns. Most times, the passion that drives us is often fueled by the hope for immediate change. But the problem tree reminds us that we are building on foundations laid by those before us, and that dismantling systems of oppression is a generational task. This does not mean we stop demanding immediate action on femicide, on high taxation, on all forms of injustice. Rather, it means we must balance urgency with strategy and organize with deeper plans to shift the roots of the problem.
“Men do have a big role to play in ending femicide and all other forms of GBV. Let’s involve them right from the curriculum, in communities, and in schools to challenge harmful gender norms and stop violence before it happens,” Says Nellie Chepkemboi, a legislative analyst and advisor on gender equality and social justice in a recent article.