Justice For Blessing Tamara

By Mary Karau Ngethe

Femicide, Gender Based Violence Yet Again, on a 7 Year Old Innocent Girl in Nyeri County

The vice of feminine, the killing of a woman or girl by a man, and the raping before killing makes it a gender rights issue, a human rights issue. The vice has not died, despite many Gender Based Violence (GBV) campaigns and programs.

If anything, it is on the rise. A girl, innocent girl, only 7 years old has been raped and murdered in Nyeri County, right in our eyes. Our Council of Elders, Njuri Njeke, Kiama Kia Maa, Nyangi Ndiriri,  the women need you now more than ever when our own girls are raped and murdered by our own sons?

   Dire cultural punishment by elders

In our old cultural ways, when there were no government systems, such characters would be:

“Put inside a bee-hive and rolled down valley to the river, to drown in broad day light for all to witness. Never to be seen again, never to be in the community again”

This act would be both a punishment to the characters who were fondly referred to as Macharia, and a detergent to future killers and rapists. This, if done today, would be a very good prevention measure against GBV

Where has our culture gone? What will our elders do differently to ensure we embrace back our sweet African culture where wrong was avoided and right was embraced?

Perhaps we should make our laws more cultural than western. We uphold what used to work. The Nyeri people were just being cultural by craving for the blood of Macharia in their own hands. Perhaps our elders should present a bill in parliament making Mob-Justice a structured legal punishment. In the spirit of UBUNTU! 

   Unbearable pain by Mothers

 Us women can honestly not continue watching femicide continue like this any more. Our birth pangs will kill us if we do not take stern action against the social vices we are observing in our country

But again, may be we ask ourselves, as Central Kenya Women, and nationally as women of our beloved country Kenya: “Where did we go wrong? How can we get better? What is our role as mothers? What is the role of our fathers in getting back to our cultural values that are clear on what is good and what is bad?

The answers to the above questions need a kamukunji, a platform to discuss how we save our girls and our women, and indeed even our boys and our men. For we are all in danger of either suicide or homicide based on our gender. There is a husband who flee his home after discovering his  wife had an affair with another man, and they planned to kill him to create way for their romance. This is happening even to wives where a husband needs to marry a younger girl, and he plans a death to create way for his romance. So gender violence is real, and it has to be addressed today not tomorrow.

Fare thee well Baby Girl Tamasha. Our little angel, we mourn you; your mothers take the wrath of raping in our hearts to feel the pain with you. We pray that the heavenly angels take your little hand and hand you over to Jesus.

To Macharia

“Macharia, imagine the residents of Nyeri craving for your blood, because of anger. 5 ngemis were done when your mother gave birth to you; she breastfed you. How did you become a rapist and a murderer?  What went wrong; and when? How can you be so shameless, that you are even helping mama Tamasha to search for her daughter, yet you know what you have done”

 Warning to potential perpetrators to our children

Let the Macharias of these times know that in moments of pain such as the Tamara moment, the instincts of every normal thinking person is overwhelming and deeply human. One moment they feel like handing the matter over to the police and seek justice the judicial way, but the next moment they remember, he might be taken to court and the law fails to hand him penalty, and he is released back to harm yet another child.

As I write this article, we learn that Macharia is being handled by the law. We hereby declare, that we, Women Of Kenya, and especially from Central region, shall support CREAW and any other legal advocates to see justice done for out children represented by Tamasha.

I urge Central Kenya Women Council members, led by the Nyeri Chapter, to be vigilant, and voice loudly for support, so that we ensure things are done right. If not, Nyeri will come to a standstill for Tamasha and for future prevention of any incidents like this ever happening again.

Call for daddy’s blood to boil Fathers, please support women in redeeming our values. If the legal systems fail to deliver justice to Tamasha, elders please join women in holding the Mathigi moment, holding twigs and walking round the streets peacefully but firmly, with placards. For your daughters and your granddaughters. We are happy with the father who said on social media “To be honest, as a father of daughters, the Tamasha incident makes my blood boil”  We urge that blood of all fathers boil to boiling point

Pole to Tamasha Family

Mama Tamasha, and family, we the Central Kenya Women and the Women of Kenya are with you, and we acknowledge the pain and anguish you are facing. May the God of comfort visit you now and always. Amen

_The author

Mary Karau Ngethe is the Chairperson, Central Kenya Women Council Program Director, CENTRAL KENYA DEVELOPMENT NETWORK. marykaraungethe@gmail.com