The Government Missed Its Own Deadline: A Timeline of Broken Commitments on GBV
In January 2025, President Ruto established a 42-member task force with specific deadlines. Amnesty International Kenya has publicly called out the missed Cabinet memo. Here is the full accountability record.
Accountability begins with a record. Here is the record — what the Government of Kenya committed to, when, what it delivered, and what it has not.
January 2024: The Protests
Between 14 and 16 women were killed in January 2024 alone. On January 27, 2024, Kenya's largest-ever anti-femicide demonstrations brought between 10,000 and 20,000 marchers to Nairobi and ten other counties. The movement's canonical slogans — 'Say Their Names', 'We Are Human Beings', 'Stop Killing Us!' — were established in those days. The government could not ignore it.
January 2025: The Task Force
President Ruto established the Presidential Technical Working Group on GBV and Femicide — 42 members, specific mandate, specific deliverables:
- Declare GBV a national crisis
- Propose legislation creating femicide as a standalone criminal offence
- Establish a National GBV and Femicide Response Fund
- Build a National GBV Management Information System
- Create a Femicide Observatory
- Recommend mandatory minimum sentences for sexual offences
- Submit a Cabinet memo on ending femicide by a stated deadline
March 2025: The Silence Begins
April 2026: What the Bills Contain
The Penal Code (Amendment) Bill 2026 and Criminal Procedure Code (Amendment) Bill 2026 were published in early 2026 and represent partial delivery on the TWG mandate. A legal definition of femicide — the most basic of the TWG recommendations — is in the legislation.
What Has Not Been Delivered
Amnesty International Kenya publicly called out the missed Cabinet memo deadline — the government's own stated timeline for submitting a comprehensive policy response. The memo was not submitted. No explanation was provided.
The Accountability Standard
Dada Labs will publish this accountability record on a rolling basis. Every commitment, dated. Every deadline, tracked. Every delivery, documented. Every failure, named.
This is not partisan. The government made these commitments publicly, voluntarily, and in writing. The standard is its own.
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