- In Kenya, 32 per cent of girls and 16 per cent of boys experience sexual violence before the age of 18 years.
- Your Excellency, Kenyans deserve quality and affordable health care without being subjected to financial hardships.
Image: COURTESY
Dear H.E. Dr. William Samoei Ruto, CGH President of the Republic of Kenya and Commander-In-Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces
Your Excellency, the Kenya citizens continue to suffer indiscriminately from the high cost of living.
Accessing quality and affordable health services in Kenya remains a far –fetched dream for Kenyans.
The devolved system of governance gave Kenyans hope of a better Kenya especially in relation to health care.
This hope has kept Kenyans resilient but at the same time devastated due the multiple inter-twining challenges ranging from insufficient resources, increase in inflation, weak accountability framework, lack of political good will, cultural barriers, among other compounded factors.
The National Crime and Research Centre conducted a study on gender-based violence in Kenya that revealed that GBV cases had gone up by 92 per cent in 2020, as compared to 2019.
In Kenya, 32 per cent of girls and 16 per cent of boys experience sexual violence before the age of 18 years. 45 per cent of women have also experienced physical violence between the ages of 15-49 years.
At the Global scale, at least 1 in 5 women experiences gender-based violence, most often from someone familiar to them.
GBV Costing Study-The Cost of Providing Services, 2016 indicates that the mean cost of providing a minimum package of GBV services, as defined in the one-stop model in a first referral public hospital (county referral hospital), is Sh44,717 (USD 502) per survivor, while the median cost is Sh43,769 (USD 492).
Your Excellency, In June 2021 the government of Kenya made 12 commitments that aim at increasing the momentum of ending all forms of Gender-based violence and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Kenya by 2026.
Among these Commitments, is the commitment No 7: Commit to integrating GBV services- medical, legal, and psychological support services into the essential minimum package of the Universal Health Coverage UHC by 2022.
The government developed guidelines for the minimum package in UHC for GBV. It’s noteworthy that the full implementation of the minimum package guidelines at the national and county levels remains a challenge.
Your Excellency, Kenyans deserve quality and affordable health care without being subjected to financial hardships.
As an important player in the GBV sector, the Gender Violence Recovery Centre calls upon your government to expedite the adoption and full implementation of the Universal Health Care (UHC) in order to ensure that packages accommodate essential GBV and SRHR health services for women, children and adolescents.
The Kenya citizens have high expectations for UHC in tackling many of the inequalities and inequitable access to health care services including the integration of GBV prevention and response services that include medical, legal, and psychological support services into the essential minimum package of the Universal Health Coverage by 2022 as well as the constitutional promise of sexual reproductive health rights (SRHR).
Thank you Sir!
An open letter by the Gender Violence Recovery Centre ([email protected]) & June Gachui, Musician, Lawyer and Radio host