STATEMENT BY THE STEERING COMMITTEE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN’S LEAGUE

June 1, 2026 

The Revolutionary Women’s League extends its deepest condolences to the families, friends and communities of all women whose lives have been stolen through femicide. We mourn every daughter, every mother, every sister, every wife, every domestic worker, every student, every worker, every queer woman and every woman whose life has been violently cut short.

We stand in solidarity with all those who continue to carry the pain of these losses. We do so not only as women, but as members of a society increasingly confronted with a national crisis that can no longer be ignored, minimized or normalized.

We also recognize that the struggle against violence directed at women is international in character. From Palestine to Western Sahara, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to all regions subjected to occupation, war, displacement and political repression, women often bear the heaviest burdens of violence and social devastation. While the forms of oppression may differ, women everywhere confront systems that seek to deny them dignity, security, self determination and full humanity. Our struggle against femicide is therefore inseparable from our solidarity with women resisting oppression, occupation and exploitation across the world.

We call this violence by its correct name: femicide.

We reject attempts to reduce femicide to crimes of passion, failed relationships, individual misfortune or isolated acts of brutality. We reject sensationalist narratives that transform the deaths of women into headlines and spectacles while leaving untouched the social conditions that make such violence possible. Every time a woman is murdered and the discussion ends with the actions of an individual perpetrator alone, society is prevented from confronting the deeper structures that continue to reproduce violence against women.

Femicide is not a women’s issue alone. It is a social, political and economic question. It is inseparable from the broader realities of exploitation, inequality, dispossession and oppression that shape life under Kenya’s neocolonial capitalist order.

As the Revolutionary Women’s League, we affirm that the liberation of women cannot be achieved in isolation from the broader struggle for national liberation and social transformation. Women’s oppression in Kenya is rooted not only in patriarchal relations but also in the neocolonial capitalist system that concentrates wealth in the hands of a small ruling elite while condemning millions to poverty, insecurity and dependence. The struggle against femicide is therefore part of the wider struggle for a National Democratic Revolution capable of dismantling exploitation, advancing genuine people’s democracy and creating the social foundations for the full emancipation of women.

The violence directed against women does not emerge in a vacuum. It develops within a society marked by mass unemployment, deepening poverty, widening inequality, social insecurity and the commodification of human life. Women are often concentrated in the most precarious forms of labour, bear the burden of unpaid reproductive work, and are frequently pushed into conditions of dependency by material circumstances beyond their control. These conditions do not excuse violence. They reveal the social environment in which violence is reproduced and normalized.

The same system that condemns millions to economic hardship also creates conditions in which women are made increasingly vulnerable. The same structures that permit exploitation in the workplace, displacement from land, inadequate housing and the erosion of public services also contribute to the insecurity that many women experience in their homes, communities and places of work.

For this reason, the struggle against femicide cannot be separated from the struggle against exploitation, patriarchy, class oppression and all systems that render human beings disposable.

Each victim of femicide is far more than a statistic. Each life lost represents a profound rupture in the social fabric. Families are shattered. Children are left without mothers. Communities lose organizers, caregivers, workers, leaders and companions. The cumulative impact of these losses has produced a national catastrophe whose consequences extend far beyond individual households.

Yet Kenyan women continue to be told that their safety depends primarily on their own vigilance. They are expected to carefully monitor their movements, their clothing, their relationships and their daily activities. They are instructed to anticipate danger at every moment and to treat survival as a personal responsibility.

Women are asked why they trusted. Women are asked why they stayed. Women are asked why they left. Women are asked why they accepted support in conditions of poverty and economic insecurity.

Society continuously places women on trial while failing to place the structures that produce violence under scrutiny.

This must end.

The responsibility for ending femicide cannot rest on the shoulders of women alone. It requires the participation of society as a whole. It requires communities that refuse silence. It requires institutions that act with urgency. It requires political commitment, social investment and collective organization. Most importantly, it requires confronting the material conditions that make women’s lives vulnerable and disposable.

The Kenyan state cannot continue responding to femicide through periodic declarations of concern while failing to address the underlying social realities that expose women to violence. Justice requires more than statements. It requires concrete action, adequate resources, accessible support systems, economic security and meaningful protection for women across the country.

The Revolutionary Women’s League therefore calls upon working women, students, peasants, trade unionists, progressive men, youth and all democratic forces to unite in the struggle against femicide and gender based violence. This fight belongs to all who believe in human dignity, equality and social justice.

The Revolutionary Women’s League believes that lasting solutions cannot be found through outrage alone. They require organization. They require political education. They require mass struggle. They require the active participation of women in every sphere of social and political life. Above all, they require the transformation of a social order that treats women, workers and the poor as expendable. As a mass organization of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya, we remain committed to building a society in which the liberation of women forms an inseparable part of the liberation of all exploited and oppressed people.

We honour the memory of every woman whose life has been stolen.

We refuse silence.

We refuse indifference.

We refuse normalization.

We affirm that women’s liberation will not be handed down from above. It will be won through organization, struggle and the collective power of the masses. The fight against femicide is inseparable from the fight against poverty, exploitation, patriarchy and neocolonial domination. It is inseparable from the struggle for a Kenya in which human dignity is valued above profit and where every woman can live free from fear, violence and oppression.

Until that day, the Revolutionary Women’s League will continue to organize, educate, mobilize and struggle alongside the masses of Kenyan women in workplaces, communities, schools and institutions across our country.

An injury to one is an injury to all.

Forward in the struggle against femicide.

Forward in the struggle for women’s liberation.

Forward in the struggle for the National Democratic Revolution.

Forward in the struggle for a socialist Kenya.

Steering Committee

Revolutionary Women’s League