With our correspondent in Nairobi, Florence Morice

Rape, often collective, genital mutilation and forced male circumcision… These are some of the sexual violence documented during the 2017 presidential election. Violence that particularly affected regions considered to be opposition strongholds.

"Based on testimonies from survivors that we gathered, gender-based violence was committed on a large scale during the presidential election in opposition strongholds," says Irène Soila, program officer at the Kenya Human Rights Commission. The main perpetrators of this violence are police or other uniformed men. It was committed during episodes of repression. The security forces took advantage of the climate of confrontation during protests to commit this violence. "

The authors of this report are concerned about the impunity that still surrounds this violence, more than four years after the election. "Most of the survivors interviewed did not file complaints. Since the perpetrators were police officers, there was in any case no chance that another police officer would follow up on a complaint against one of their colleagues," continues Irène Soila.

Beyond the physical, social and psychological consequences of this violence, the international and Kenyan human rights federations fear that it will hinder women's participation in the next elections, to the point that according to the FIDH it could compromise the "credibility" of those elections.