Viral Videos Show Kenyan Women Assaulted For Wearing Miniskirts
Earlier this month, a woman selling hard-boiled eggs at a bus station in Nairobi got into an argument with a customer over 70 cents she said he owed her.
The man mocked the mother of two — who was wearing a short skirt — for being "indecently dressed," then rallied dozens of nearby men to strip her naked while others filmed the mob attack with their cellphones.
The graphic video, instead of prompting arrests, was met with some approval on Kenyan social media. The miniskirt has been decried as a "foreign" blight on traditional African dress and values. Earlier this year, miniskirts were declared illegal by parliamentary decree in neighboring Uganda.
In Nairobi, just around the corner from where that bus station attack took place, in a narrow stall stocked with brightly colored fabrics, Marianne Njambi does a brisk trade in women's clothes. Miniskirts, she says, are one of her best-selling items.
Women participate in the Nov. 17 protest in Nairobi. The viral videos showing the attacks have prompted soul searching in the predominantly Christian country.
"This is our country," she laughs. "Women have to wear what they want."
Then Njambi slowly reaches into her purse and pulls out her cellphone to show me the latest stripping video she'd downloaded just that morning. Since that first attack on the egg-vendor there has been a new victim, and a new video, almost every day.
We watch the video together with some other women in the shop. This one takes place inside a bus. A woman's canary yellow dress is pulled up to her waist. The cellphone camera zooms in as her legs are forcibly spread open by some of the male passengers.
"Oh God, please help me, please stop," she begs in Swahili, as the men are heard laughing.
When the one-minute video ends, Njambi puts her phone back in her purse and shakes her head.
"It is getting worse," she says. "Every day. It's routine now. If someone wears something short, not even short, a bit short."
She glances outside at the bus station on the corner, crowded with commuters but also pickpockets and unemployed drifters.
Marianne Njambi looks out at the bus station where a public stripping two weeks ago has inspired copycat attacks. "Since they started stripping girls," she says, "I started fearing."
"Since they have started stripping girls, I started fearing," she says.
These widely shared videos have found their way into the homes of suburban moms and middle-class Kenyans who wouldn't normally venture to these rough parts of town.
A popular Kenyan mom's Facebook group set up to exchange information about childcare and parenting has taken on an activist role, organizing a rally in downtown Nairobi last week where hundreds of demonstrators chanted "My dress, my choice!" (the name of a Twitter campaign as well) and demanded government action.
Kavinya Makau, who works at the Nairobi office of the human rights group Equality Now, says the stripping videos have provided an "opportunity" for social change, generating more popular outrage and soul searching in this predominantly Christian country than far more brutal crimes of sexual violence or rape.
"Kenya is now having a conversation around violence against women for the first time in a very long time," Makau says.
However, the same viral videos that are galvanizing activism are also inciting copycat attacks of increasing violence, she says. In a subsequent video, a woman was beaten. Another was raped with a beer bottle.
Each new assault, Makau says, sends a message to would-be perpetrators that men can attack women in broad daylight with impunity.
Kenyan police say they can't arrest people if victims don't come forward; women's rights activists estimate that only 1 out of 5 victims of sexual violence in Kenya ever report the crime.
As a result, Kenya's national bar association, the Law Society of Kenya, is requesting special permission to prosecute the crimes.
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Transcript
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And women in Kenya are facing an extreme form of harassment. Almost daily for the past two weeks there, street mobs have publicly stripped women for wearing clothes the men deem too revealing. The attacks are shared on cell phone videos, inspiring a cycle of assaults. NPR's Gregory Warner reports that they're also sparking unprecedented activism for women's rights. And please note this report contains graphic and disturbing sounds of violence.
GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: At a crowded bus station in downtown Nairobi, a guy in a checkered cap directs men and women into buses headed to all corners of the city. His name is David Owour. I ask him how he feels about women in miniskirts. His face fills with disgust.
DAVID OWOUR: (Speaking Swahili).
WARNER: Their clothes should be ripped off completely, he says.
They should be stripped?
OWOUR: Yeah.
WARNER: On November 10, at this same bus station, a woman was stripped naked and pawed by dozens of men. It wasn't the first time in this rough part of town. But this episode was captured on cell phone. The graphic video prompted some approval on Kenyan social media. The miniskirt, illegal in some African countries, has been portrayed in the press as a foreign European blight on traditional African fashion. But just around the corner from the bus station, in a narrow stall stocked with brightly colored fabrics, Marianne Njambi does a brisk trade in women's clothes.
What dresses are the best-selling?
MARIANNE NJAMBI: Miniskirts, mostly.
WARNER: Miniskirts are most popular?
NJAMBI: Yes, and tight trousers. This is our country. We have to wear it whenever you want it.
WARNER: Then she pulls out her cell phone and calls up the latest assault video that she downloaded just that morning. There's been a new video - a new victim - almost every day.
NJAMBI: Have you seen this?
WARNER: And a warning - this video is and sounds very graphic. This one is set inside a bus. The woman's canary yellow dress is hiked up, and the cell phone camera eye zooms in as her legs are forcibly spread open by some of the male passengers. These widely shared videos have sparked a national soul-searching in this predominately Christian country. Hundreds of demonstrators chanting my dress, my choice, took the streets of Nairobi last week to demand a government response.
KAVINYA MAKAU: People - I think it's because yes, it was filmed, Kenya is now having a conversation around violence against women for the first time, I must say, in a very long time.
WARNER: Kavinya Makau is a program officer at the human rights group Equality Now. She says these videos in Kenya have triggered more anger and more calls for change than any other episode of sexual violence.
MAKAU: It is an opportunity like no other for state officials to address in very concrete terms the issue of violence against women in Kenya.
WARNER: But she says the same viral videos that are galvanizing activism are also inciting copycat attacks of increasing violence. In a subsequent video, a woman was beaten. Another was raped with a beer bottle. Each new video, she says, is sending a message to would-be perpetrators.
MAKAU: Nothing happened to those people that were involved in that act. And it's the impunity around it and the fact that people know that they can get away with it that this continues to happen.
WARNER: Authorities say that they can't arrest people if the victims don't come forward. The national bar association called the Law Society of Kenya is requesting special permission to prosecute the crimes in their place. Gregory Warner, NPR News, Nairobi. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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