King Charles III and Queen Camilla will from October 31 to November 3, 2023, be in Kenya for an official state visit.
The royal family has lined up key activities during their stay in Kenya, including visits to Nairobi, Mombasa and surrounding areas.
However, what will stand out for Queen Camilla will be her meeting with survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, learning how they are supported and sharing her insights from working in this area.
According to the Royal website, Queen Camilla has for more than 10 years demonstrated her passion in the area of working and walking with survivors of Gender Based Violence.
For years, she has been at the forefront of highlighting the work being done by organisations which work with survivors both in the UK and other countries to break the barriers and taboos associated with the topic.
The Royal Website shows that the Queen has visited sexual assault and gender violence centres in many countries, including the USA, India (Asha Sadan in Mumbai) and the Balkans.
“In 2014, Her Majesty met actress Angelina Jolie and the then UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague, to discuss their work on ending sexual violence in conflict."
“During a tour of the Balkans in 2016, the Queen spoke to women who were raped during the Kosovan conflict, and who shared their harrowing stories."
In 2017, the Queen visited India and she was among those who attended a meeting to discuss violence against women and girls.
The meeting was held at the Residence of the British High Commissioner to the Republic of India.
In 2021, Her Majesty, then the Duchess of Cornwall, became Patron of the Mirabel Centre, Nigeria’s first Sexual Assault Referral Centre.
“In October 2021, The Queen attended the Shameless! Festival Reception in London, hosted by WOW and Birkbeck's SHaME Project, where she gave a speech about the stigma and shame that survivors often face,” the website says.
Queen Camilla also became the Patron of SaveLives, a UK charity in 2021 and launched their photography exhibition ‘I Am’: Portraits of Survivors of Domestic Abuse in Manchester, which showcased survivors of domestic abuse.
She also played a key role in sharing messages of encouragement to women who faced SGBV during the Covid-19 pandemic.
From the above, it is evident that SGBV is a topic she holds so dear and it is an agenda she would love to discuss anywhere she goes, including Kenya.
This is because women in Kenya just like their counterparts across the world experience SGBV.
The Kenya Demographic Health Survey, 2022 showed that 34 per cent of women had experienced physical violence, while 13 per cent had experienced sexual violence.
Similarly, seven per cent of men had experienced physical violence while 27 per cent had experienced sexual violence.
According to a report released by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu this month, many cases of GBV are not reaching the courts for prosecution.
This is attributed to the fact that not all GBV survivors who reported at the GBVRC were willing to pursue justice.
“The reasons for survivors not pursuing justice included intimidation and threat by the perpetrator and vulnerability of the survivor due to poverty resulting in them being compromised financially,” the report states.
Shockingly, the cases that eventually reach courts take inordinately long to be concluded.
For instance, between 2018 and 2022, courts filed 3,578 sexual offences.
However, only 2,863 cases were used in the analysis as cases filed in 2022 had no chance of being active for more than 360 days as at the time of audit.