Political goonism: Why women are the biggest victims
This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.
What you need to know:
- The victims of political violence are often women trying to earn a living and provide for their families.
- Women running businesses near political rallies often bear the cost when campaigns turn violent.
Whenever political violence erupts here, the story is always the same. A leader’s convoy is attacked. A rally descends into chaos. Cameras catch chairs flying, teargas in the air, and crowds running for safety. Within hours, the politician puts out a statement, condemning the violence and promising to carry on. Their campaign trail moves to the next town, the next rally, the next headline.
Who stops to ask what becomes of the woman who was earning her living nearby?
The last two weeks gave us an answer. First, Homa Bay was thrown into chaos during a rally. Days later, a convoy in Nakuru was attacked, leaving destruction in its wake. These incidents should concern us all. With the 2027 General Election drawing closer, political intolerance appears to be gathering pace, and if we ignore this, the damage will go far beyond politics.
Kenya is a democracy. Every political faction has a right to speak to citizens; no one owns a bigger claim to the people. Elections are meant to be won through persuasion and the ballot, not fists, pangas and goons. But every election, we lose sight of this. And the politicians almost never pay the price.
Take the trader who died in Homa Bay. She closed her shop, went home, and stayed indoors most of the day as the violence swept through town. She was not at the rally and had no stake in who won or lost. Her only concern was the small business that fed her children and paid their school fees. When a rumour reached her that looters had invaded the market, she left the safety of her house to check on her goods. The rumour turned out to be false. By then, she was on the road. A speeding vehicle ended her life before she could turn back.
Politicians survive the chaos because they have the means. Security details, armoured vehicles, lawyers on standby. When goons attack a convoy, the leader inside walks away with a story for the next press conference. Women trading in the same markets have none of that protection. And when chaos actually breaks out, women are often the last to escape it.
Running through a stampede is not the same for a woman with a baby on her back, or one in a long skirt, or one who has spent the day working instead of training for speed. Fighting off a goon swinging a panga is not a fair contest between a grown man and a woman half his size. Politics turns violent in seconds. Women rarely have the seconds to spare.
That is the hidden cost of “goonism”. A woman shuts her shop because she cannot risk losing her stock, then loses her life trying to protect it. Another becomes the sole provider for her children, and when she is gone, the family is left with nothing. Her children have no one to speak for them. What they face is an uncertain future, a home without income, and in this case, even a fight over where their mother should be buried.
We treat political violence as a contest between rival camps, as if it only happens to politicians and their supporters. Look closer, and the victims are rarely the politicians. They are the women going about their business nearby, trying to survive the day, caught up in trouble that was never theirs.
Maybe this keeps happening because we hardly count the right losses. When political violence happens, we count the arrests, the property destroyed, the politicians attacked. We almost never count the women who lose a day’s income, the families that lose a breadwinner, the lives quietly cut short at the edge of someone else’s political contest. As long as we do not count them, we will never see the real cost of the violence we keep allowing.
Whether you are organising a rally or simply watching one unfold, there is a lesson here: The next time a crowd turns violent, do not just ask which politician was targeted. Ask which woman was nearby, trying to live an ordinary day, and what it cost her.
Political violence should not be measured only by what happens to the powerful. It should also be measured by what happens to ‘Wanjiku’—the woman who closes her shop early because she is afraid, and by what happens to her children when she does not come home.
Reporting originally appeared via Nation Africa. Read the full source for additional context.