Sex, power and silence: Inside Kenya's workplace harassment problem

This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.

What you need to know:

- From ignored complaints to multimillion-shilling compensation, survivors are using the courts to challenge abuse of power at work.

- Experts explain Kenya's workplace sexual harassment laws, why reporting remains low, and how evidence can make or break a case.

On May 6, 1991, Nancy's supervisor, identified as a Mr Maina, physically assaulted her in his office. She reported the assault. Nothing was done.

Six years later, on October 14, 1997, another supervisor, only identified as Mr Mathenge, suspended her from work after she refused his sexual advances. It would take her more than two decades, and a fight through Kenya's courts, to get justice.

She had joined the Ministry of Lands as a cartographer trainee back on December 28, 1981, and was confirmed as permanent staff four years later. Government jobs were among the most prestigious you could land at the time, and Nancy went on to work there for 19 years, picking up a few promotions along the way. Her nearly two decades there, though, were anything but prestigious.

In April 1998, Nancy wrote to the Permanent Secretary under the ministry to protest her suspension, and to state plainly that it was the result of rebuffing Mathenge's advances. Again, nothing was done, not even an investigation.

A year later, Nancy was back at work, and Mathenge ordered her to recall the protest letter. She refused. He suspended her again, then issued her a "show cause" notice, asking why she should not be dismissed for writing a letter containing "unsubstantiated allegations." On the strength of that notice, she was fired.

In 2002, Nancy filed a case against the Lands Ministry. It dragged on for 22 years, until November 15, 2024, when the court finally ruled that she had proven it.

Documenting every incident as it happened is what saved her case in the end. She was awarded Sh7.4 million for wrongful termination, over two decades after the sexual harassment that led to it.

Nancy's case is not an isolated one

Just four months before her award was issued, the High Court in Kericho dismissed a case filed by former Ekaterra Tea Kenya PLC manager Geoffrey Kirui, who had been sacked alongside Robert Cheruiyot following a BBC investigative story titled "Sex for Work."

The BBC story implicated the two managers in multiple sexual harassment incidents, prompting their employer to initiate an independent probe. During the probe and the ensuing disciplinary hearing, Kirui admitted to making sexual advances on multiple female colleagues, but claimed he had not insisted, and that he had only recently learned that even a single unwelcome advance was one too many.

Upon his sacking, Kirui sued. But, as they say, ignorance of the law is no defence.

The Kericho court held that the International Labour Organisation Convention 190, the Violence and Harassment Convention of 2019, states that even one unwelcome sexual advance is too many. "Making sexual advances to his female colleagues, whether once or in many instances, falls squarely under this [ILO Convention 190] definition of sexual harassment and violence and harassment at work," the judge said before dismissing Kirui's plea for reinstatement.

Kirui and Cheruiyot both lost their reinstatement cases after investigations by the BBC and by their employer found that the two had sexually harassed multiple women. In Kirui's case, one woman allegedly gave in to his sexual demands in return for favourable work allocation at one of the tea estates. In 2021, he had a sexual relationship with another woman who was, at the time, directly reporting to him.

On September 19, 2023, the labour court in Nairobi awarded a former Pawa IT Solutions worker Sh1.32 million after finding that the company's Managing Director had sent multiple inappropriate and sexually explicit messages to the junior staffer.

Her problems started on September 17, 2022, when he sent her a link on WhatsApp titled "what happens when you stop having sex." It led to an Ohangla song, a traditional and contemporary music and dance genre originating from the Luo community, with explicit lyrics. The staffer consulted a colleague, who revealed that another woman in a similar position had reacted harshly after receiving sexually explicit content from the same boss, and had been frustrated into quitting.

In court, the managing director claimed he did not know what the lyrics meant. That defence fell apart quickly; the video came with an English translation built in, and the court pointed to it directly. He also argued that the junior staffer had responded to his message with emojis, which he took as a sign the advances were welcome. The court wasn't moved. He should not have sent the video in the first place, it held, which made her reaction beside the point.

The former employee also accused the managing director of rape on January 14, 2023, after a client meeting where the two had been drinking. The court found that, on a balance of probabilities, he had non-consensual sex with her in his car. In total, the court awarded her Sh1.32 million in damages.

While the courts issuing judgments in favour of victims points to delivery of justice, the persistence of these cases suggests that hefty financial awards have not been deterrent enough to make workplaces fully safe for women.

What the law says

Kenyan law treats sexual harassment as both a criminal offence and a workplace violation. It places obligations on employers, and gives victims more than one route to justice.

Under the Sexual Offences Act (2006), it counts as harassment when a person in a position of authority persistently makes unwelcome sexual advances, asks for sexual favours, or engages in sexually suggestive conduct, verbal or physical, despite knowing it's unwanted. A conviction carries at least three years in prison, a fine of no less than Sh100,000, or both.

The Employment Act (Cap. 226) goes further within the workplace itself. It defines harassment to include direct or indirect demands for sexual favours tied to a promise of promotion or preferential treatment, or a threat to someone's current or future job. Sexually explicit language, spoken or written, sexually suggestive visual material, and unwelcome physical conduct that undermines an employee's dignity or ability to work all fall under it too.

And the law doesn't stop at defining what's prohibited; it puts a duty on employers to prevent it. Any organisation with 20 or more employees is required to draw up a workplace sexual harassment policy, in consultation with staff, covering how such cases will be prevented, reported and resolved.

‘Very often, it's your word against his word’

Judith Guserwa, managing partner at J.A. Guserwa & Co. Advocates, has handled workplace sexual harassment cases for years. She says they are among the most challenging employment disputes because they often hinge on competing accounts rather than direct evidence.

"Very often, it's your word against his word," she says. To reach a decision, "the court considers the demeanour of witnesses, the surrounding circumstances, and whether the evidence presented is credible."

The absence of eyewitnesses, she explains, does not automatically weaken a case. A complainant's testimony alone may be sufficient if the court finds it credible and consistent with the surrounding facts. "There is no threshold on the number of witnesses," she says. "It can even be only you. The court considers the case holistically before reaching a decision."

As workplace communication increasingly shifts to digital platforms, electronic evidence has become critical in sexual harassment litigation; text messages, emails, WhatsApp conversations, and audio recordings can all strengthen a case, provided they are properly authenticated in court.

"Recordings can also be admitted in evidence once they are accompanied by the required electronic certification to show they have not been manipulated," she says.

She advises employees who experience harassment to preserve any communication that may support their claims, and to document incidents as early as possible, the same instinct that eventually won Nancy her case.

The scale of the problem

Just how widespread this is becomes clearer in the numbers. A 2025 study by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) surveyed 3,523 employees across 26 companies and found that one in three had experienced gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) at work, while more than half had witnessed it happen to someone else.

Verbal harassment (19 per cent) and threats to job security (17 per cent) came up most often. What's more telling is that 35 per cent of respondents admitted to perpetrating this kind of behaviour themselves, a sign of just how normal it has become to those doing it.

The burden doesn't fall evenly, either. Women, junior staff, short-term contract workers and employees in construction and financial services carry the most risk, and in over half of the cases, the perpetrator was someone in a position of authority. Being male cut the odds of experiencing GBVH by 63.6 per cent, while simply working in construction pushed the risk up 126 per cent compared with agriculture. And still, 86 per cent of incidents were never reported at all, kept quiet by fear of retaliation, stigma, and a general lack of faith that reporting would change anything.

The cost, to workers and to employers

It's expensive, too, for everyone involved. The IFC estimates that affected employees lose an average of 24.3 working days a year, which works out to Sh92,185 per worker in lost productivity and HR costs. Multiplied across a workforce, that adds up fast, and most of the firms surveyed didn't even have a standalone GBVH policy to begin with. Where mechanisms did exist, they were applied inconsistently, and employees didn't trust them much anyway.

The report recommends that GBVH indicators be built into companies' environmental, social and governance frameworks, risk management and sustainability metrics, treating transparency and accountability as business necessities, not just the right thing to do.

A recurring pattern, and no time limit on constitutional claims

Having represented clients in workplace sexual harassment cases for years, Judith has observed a recurring pattern: the misconduct often involves an abuse of power, with supervisors exploiting their authority over junior employees in exchange for employment benefits or career advancement. She cautions that professional boundaries should be maintained at all times, to protect both employee and employer, and notes that workplace harassment can occur regardless of gender; men and women are equally capable of abusing positions of authority.

On timing, unfair termination claims must generally be filed within three years, as provided in the Limitation of Actions Act (Cap. 22). Breach of contract claims have a six-year limitation period.

But claims built on violations of constitutional rights, dignity, equality, freedom from discrimination through sexual harassment don't get barred just because time has passed. "Constitutional violations are timeless," she says. "A person may have suffered sexual harassment years ago and only later find the strength to seek justice." It's this same provision, in the end, that gave Nancy's 22-year-old case a way through.

That doesn't mean time doesn't matter at all, though. Whenever a claim is filed, she says, it still comes down to the quality of the evidence. Courts look at the full factual picture, weigh how credible the witnesses are, and decide whether what happened actually meets the legal bar for workplace sexual harassment.

For employers, prevention is still the strongest defence, in her view. "Organisations should establish clear sexual harassment policies, provide confidential reporting mechanisms, investigate complaints promptly, and foster workplace cultures where professional competence, not personal relationships, determines career progression," she says.

The greatest challenge

While Kenya has a legal framework prohibiting workplace sexual harassment, Judith argues that the greatest challenge lies in enforcement.

"You can have the best laws in any country," she says. "The problem is in the implementation. The law already says there should be no sexual harassment at the workplace. The question is how we interpret it and how we enforce it."

Employers carry the primary legal responsibility for creating workplaces free of sexual harassment, she notes. Every one of them should have a policy in place, and employees should have somewhere safe to report to. "The employer must provide an environment that is conducive to work," she says. "If employees are exposed to sexual harassment, the employer can be held responsible."

That's more or less what it took Nancy 22 years, and a court ruling, to finally hear.

Side-bar: What actually qualifies as sexual harassment?

The International Labour Organisation defines sexual harassment as unwelcome, offensive, sex-based behaviour. It classifies it as a form of gender-based violence, a human rights violation, and a barrier to equality at work.

In 2019, the ILO adopted the Violence and Harassment Convention, the first international treaty to recognise everyone's right to a world of work free from violence and harassment, including gender-based harassment included.

The ILO breaks sexual harassment down into two categories, and insists both need to be addressed.

The first is quid pro quo harassment, “this for that”. It covers any situation where a job benefit, a term of employment, or someone's continued employment is made conditional on submitting to unwanted sexual conduct, or where refusing it leads to an adverse decision against them.

The second is hostile work environment harassment: conduct that makes the workplace intimidating, hostile or humiliating for the person on the receiving end, even where there's no direct trade-off involved. This covers a wider range of behaviour, sex-based comments, disparaging remarks about someone's sex, sexual innuendo, and displaying sexually suggestive or explicit material.

Kenyan law draws on this same thinking, but where does the line actually sit in practice? Eric Kivuva, Chairman of the Law Society of Kenya's Nairobi Branch, offers a real-world test.

Take a remark like "Niaje mrembo? Na umeiva”, on its own, he says, it may not amount to sexual harassment. Context, and who's saying it, matters. "We must be guided by the provisions of Section 23 of the Sexual Offences Act, which speaks to the issue of context, so that if the comment comes from a person in a position of authority or influence over you one way or the other, then it will, in the strict sense, be construed as sexual harassment," he says.

Between colleagues with no power imbalance, it's murkier. "In the case of peer-to-peer, it becomes something subject to interpretation, especially for the victim," Kivuva says. "For it to qualify as harassment, it must be obvious that either a harsh environment has been created as a result, or that it will affect career progression."

Whatever form it takes, the common thread running through all of it is the same: the conduct has to be unwelcome or offensive to the person on the receiving end. Unwelcomeness, in the end, is the test that matters most.

Reporting originally appeared via Nation Africa. Read the full source for additional context.