Female MPs urge end to death penalty for women in Kenya

Female lawmakers in Kenya have launched a new campaign to abolish the death penalty for women, saying the country’s justice system fails to recognise the domestic violence and deep inequalities that often lead women to commit crimes.

The call came from members of the Kenya Women Parliamentary Association (KEWOPA) during a breakfast meeting with the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Kenya, held just before the start of the global 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.

The MPs want Kenya to adopt the African Union’s draft Protocol on the abolition of the death penalty and take a more gender-sensitive approach to criminal justice.

Senator Beth Syengo, speaking for the KEWOPA chairperson, said women on death row face “systemic inequities” and are punished twice – once for the crime and again for their gender and for failures in the systems that should protect them.

“Many women sentenced to death come from abusive homes,” she said.

“When a woman is sentenced to death, she is often punished again for her gender, for systemic failures, and for the structures meant to protect her.”

ICJ Kenya chairperson Christine Alai told the meeting that Kenyan courts still hand down death sentences for murder, robbery with violence, attempted robbery with violence, and treason, even after mandatory death sentences for murder were scrapped in 2017.

She urged lawmakers to pay closer attention to the lives of women facing capital charges, many of whom are survivors of long-term domestic violence.

The MPs called for judges to take these histories into account and for the justice sector to interview women prisoners and record their experiences to guide future reforms.

According to these lawmakers, justice that is blind to gender is not justice at all.

They insisted that the national debate on the death penalty must become more responsive to the forces that push women into crime.

Senator Syengo added that KEWOPA is ready to work with ICJ Kenya, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, development partners, and other parliamentarians “to ensure that no woman is further victimised by a system meant to protect her”.