“Usikimye.” Do not be silent. The Swahili word has become a rallying cry among survivors in Kenya, who are tired of bearing shame that is not theirs.
The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence ends on December 10, with the ongoing crisis affecting millions of women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa still in focus. It is estimated that one in three women, or 840 million worldwide, has faced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. According to the World Health Organization and United Nations partner agencies, 316 million women have experienced intimate partner violence in just the past year. The crisis also disproportionately affects marginalized groups. The latest global data on violence against women and girls shows a serious human rights crisis. Violent acts can violate their human rights and result in devastating psychological, physical, and social consequences, including death.
Studies revealed that violence not only negatively impacts women’s health and well-being but also negatively impacts their children’s safety, health, and education. Children growing up in homes where women face violence are more likely to experience physical or psychological abuse. The risk of carrying violence into adulthood increases with this kind of exposure. However, despite current policies, systemic failures stemming from cultural norms and inconsistent leadership continue to undermine prevention efforts, the justice process, and the assistance provided to survivors.
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“Within sub-Saharan Africa, GBV is prevalent due to various systemic, socio-cultural and structural factors that are often largely unaddressed,” said Dr. Susan Ontiri, Country Director at the International Centre for Reproductive Health-Kenya (ICRHK). She said that most GBV interventions and prevention strategies only tackle immediate or surface-level causes, rather than the root issues that sustain the cycle of violence.
“Gender inequalities are rooted in punitive socio-cultural norms that promote male dominance and female suppression,” she said. “Systemic failure persists due to deep-rooted weak enforcement of laws and often strained judicial systems that remain under-resourced and difficult to access, while implementation gaps in well-documented policies stem from limited resources and low political will.”
In the Kenyan context, she said that economic inequality and weak enforcement of the law have made girls and women more vulnerable to violence. She said that in some communities, women are largely dependent on men, and when they make their own income, they have little to no say as to how this income should be used. Dr. Ontiri said that girls, in many cases, are forced into non-consensual sexual and exploitative situations to make ends meet and have the ability to purchase basic needs such as sanitary pads, situations that sometimes turn violent.
“This, coupled with the significant loopholes in law enforcement, presents fewer systemic supports through which vulnerable girls and women can be protected,” she said.
Shifting harmful norms
Gender-based violence is often seen as a “private matter,” which continues to cause human rights violations across Kenya and beyond.
The framing of GBV as a private family issue plays a major role in its continuation and the absence of accountability in many African settings. This perspective is based on widespread patriarchal norms and traditional power imbalances. It can silence survivors, discourage reporting, and reinforce stigma, which makes it hard for victims to find help or seek justice. As a result, offenders may not face consequences, which keeps the cycle of abuse going.
However, Dr. Ontiri cites promising models already making an impact across Kenyan communities.
In Kenya, she said, some of the strategies include implementation of Social & Behavior Change interventions, community-led dialogue models, community gatekeepers’ engagement and male engagement dialogue sessions. These interventions can be taken to scale through the integration of evidence-based models into the County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs), national plans, and within communities and schools.
“Further, leveraging existing collaborations and partnerships with community structures will help to strengthen long-term change and sustainability,” she said. “Ultimately, the goal is to create awareness and debunk various myths that previously made it ‘okay’ for women and girls to be violated without consequences.”
She said the Usikimye, loosely translated to ‘Do Not Be Silent’, campaign as an example of efforts encouraging survivors to speak openly. Usikimye is dedicated to ending gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide through survivor-centered, feminist, and trauma-informed approaches. The organization believes in empowering survivors to reclaim their lives and voices.
Dr. Ontiri said such initiatives, and several other efforts aimed at addressing the stigma and silence around GBV and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), conversations on GBV continue to receive attention in mainstream media, attention that has contributed to bolder demands for social accountability and action against GBV. “By highlighting GBV as not only a social issue but also a health problem, advocating for action to be taken and empowering women and girls with a voice, we hope that these steps can bring about the much-needed change in society,” she said.
“The shame belongs to the perpetrator, never to the survivor.”
Survivor-centered care remains critically under-resourced, leaving many women without the essential support and treatment they need. This shortage of resources often results in insufficient access to medical, psychological, and legal services tailored to survivors’ unique experiences. In addition, stigma and discrimination prevent many women from seeking assistance, while others are denied services outright due to cultural biases, systemic gaps, or provider attitudes.
Dr. Ontiri said that the priority is “advocacy to ensure adequate resources, increased budget allocations and ring-fencing of funds for survivor-centred care at national and county levels.” She said that adequate funding and replicability of integrated GBV recovery centers (GBVRCs) within health facilities to ensure survivors of GBV receive “comprehensive medical, psychosocial, legal and emergency shelter services.”
She said that the integrated GBVRC at Coast General Hospital, for example, pioneered in East Africa through partnerships with institutions like the International Centre for Reproductive Health-Kenya (ICRHK), demonstrates a high-impact, replicable model for offering this essential combination of medical, paralegal, and psychosocial support in a safe, institutional setting. Scaling up such successful integrated centers is a key priority, said Dr. Ontiri.
She also emphasised the need to build the capacity of frontline health workers, saying “nurses, counsellors and social workers must be equipped with trauma-informed, survivor-centred skills, especially for adolescents and young children who in Kenya constitute close to 80% of GBV survivors. Dr. Ontiri added that strengthening digital referral pathways, toll-free hotlines, and county-level rapid response systems will also be crucial. She said that every county needs safe shelters so survivors have “stigma-free spaces where they can seek protection.”
“Beyond governments and donors, private sector institutions and civil society also have a role to play,” she said. “Strengthening inclusive leadership by elevating women leaders who can drive sustained improvements in GBV prevention and survivor care is necessary.”
She said programs such as the WomenLift Health Leadership Journey, which is designed to give talented women leaders the tools and support they need to successfully use their voice, expertise, and leadership skills for health impact, can help advance this by institutionalizing gender-responsive leadership to support women at the forefront of GBV response and health systems change, among other pressing issues.
Scaling gender-inclusive dialogues across Africa
Gender-inclusive dialogue has been shown to shift harmful attitudes and reduce violence in households and communities.
Research and initiatives by various organizations, including the United Nations and other gender equality advocates, support the idea that promoting gender-inclusive language and dialogue is a crucial component of broader strategies to challenge harmful gender norms, reduce domestic and community violence, and foster more respectful and equitable relationships.
Several UN agencies play an important role in combating gender-based violence. Each agency brings its own expertise and resources to fight this global crisis. They work together to create policies, run programs, and gather resources to prevent GBV and support survivors. Their work follows international guidelines like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 5, which focuses on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.
To scale these across Africa, particularly in low-income, conflict-affected, and climate-vulnerable areas, Dr. Ontiri recommends building capacity among community champions, including women, men, youth, and leaders. “By involving communities in solutions creation and building a sense of ownership and accountability in the safety and well-being of vulnerable persons within communities,” she said, “we can provide solutions from the inside out rather than prescribing approaches that do not consider our diverse cultural contexts.”
She also suggested using media channels and digital platforms such as radio to create awareness, address stigma, and sustain advocacy around the issue, build community support, and demand action from governments and the relevant public institutions, including the legal justice system.
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Scaling women-led and grassroots organizations is especially critical.
“Last but not least,” she said, “we can scale solutions by empowering and collaborating with the community and grassroots organizations that are women-led for cultural acceptability, relevance, and feasibility. These actions, taken together, can help shift harmful attitudes and reduce violence in households and communities.”
However, women’s rights organizations remain underfunded despite being the most effective actors in response to GBV.
Dr. Ontiri urged that women-led organizations push global and national funders to allocate a fixed percentage of their GBV funding directly to local women-led groups. She said that African women leaders and GBV champions in decision-making platforms for co-designing, implementing, and monitoring programs. “Women leaders and GBV champions from Sub-Saharan Africa should be included in national, regional, and global decision-making platforms that discuss GBV matters,” she said.
She called on donors to provide more flexible funding with less bureaucracy to make it more accessible. According to Dr. Ontiri, expanding support for advocacy-related work is particularly important, as such initiatives form the bulk of GBV initiatives currently implemented across African settings.
As the 16 Days of Activism concludes, Dr. Ontiri urges governments and implementing partners to focus on the root causes of GBV and prioritize shifting interventions from reactive to preventive. Further, partners need to continue advocating for increased allocation and prompt disbursement of funding for GBV initiatives, and replicate and scale up best practices and evidence-based interventions that have been successful in addressing and eradicating GBV within communities.
“We must focus on the root causes of GBV.”
She also said there is a need to reignite discussions around the so-called GBV triple threat, the interconnected crises of GBV, HIV infections, and teenage pregnancies. “We must acknowledge how each issue affects the other two and recognize that their impacts are urgent and complex. These commitments will also bridge the gaps between policies and actual implementation, which governments and all stakeholders must commit to support if we are to address GBV across Africa.”
Failure to take these steps, she warned, will ensure GBV continues to devastate women and girls for generations.
