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Kenyan women protest against femicide in Nairobi in March 2019
Photo: Daniel Irungu / EPA-EFE
The murder of Rita Waeni could hardly have been more cruel.
According to everything the investigators know so far, a man lured the young Kenyan woman to an AirBnB apartment on the outskirts of Nairobi via Instagram.
The 20-year-old had fended off his advances several times in the previous days, but in the end she agreed to go on a date - it would put a brutal end to her life.
A day after the appointment, Kenyan Criminal Investigation Department officers removed Waeni's remains from the apartment.
Her body was dismembered, the head is still missing, and the gruesome images are circulating on social media.
It has now become known that Waeni's parents received blackmail messages on the day of the murder, pictures with a saw and demands for the equivalent of almost 3,000 euros.
It is not the only femicide that is currently causing turmoil in the country: just a few days earlier, the well-known internet personality Starlet Wahu was found dead in an AirBnB, apparently also murdered by a man during a date.
Since then, the two murders have moved the public, dominating newspaper headlines and the evening news.
The hashtag #stopkillingwomen is trending on X, “Stop the murders of women.”
But there is a worrying trend emerging on social media.
Because behind most of the outrage about the violence there is a “but”: “but Kenyan women no longer have any morals,” it is said, or “but the woman was a slut,” or: “but it is their own fault.”
Victim This phenomenon is called
blaming
; victims are held responsible for the actions because they allegedly behaved inappropriately.
The latest series of femicides is causing the “manosphere,” the misogynistic online world, to boil over.
Because the statements above are not individual opinions.
Such attitudes are fueled by influential social media stars like Andrew Kibe.
The internet star has around 600,000 followers on Twitter and Facebook, and his YouTube channel was blocked last year for "violating the terms of use." Kibe not only shares his first name with the well-known American incel influencer Andrew Tate, but also his marketing strategies for chauvinistic and misogynistic content.
The main thing is loud, the main thing is controversial and misogynistic – this is how you can make money online.
"Stop the murders of women, but..."
On his channels, he discusses with fans that women show too much skin - while he plays videos of scantily clad dancing ladies on an endless loop.
Kibe is a self-declared anti-feminist, and he has already cited Qatar and Dubai as role model countries when it comes to dealing with the female gender.
»Men are the source of joy in a woman's life.
Your anatomy was designed for us men,” he said during a radio broadcast.
A woman doesn't have to work if a man can take care of her.
His comment on the outrage surrounding the current femicides on his video channel: “Shut the fuck up.” He calls his critics “bitches.”
Catherine Kyobutungi heads the African Population and Health Research Center, one of the continent's most renowned research institutes.
She ironically calls herself a “toxic feminist” and has long been concerned with misogyny online.
She says: »There are global role models who make money out of hatred against women, and Kenya now has its own instigators.
People like Kibe have huge followings and gild their misogyny.
Her narrative catches many young men who have their own problems and they then see women as the root of their evil.
They think women don’t have to be treated with respect.”
The conditions for the preachers of hate are currently ideal: the Kenyan economy is stumbling, and youth unemployment in particular is high.
Many young men who grew up with the idea of having to care for women feel inferior.
In the country's countless evangelical churches, traditional role models are taught and feminism is dismissed as something "Western."
At the same time, the middle class is growing, self-confident women are making careers and are no longer forced into the role of housewife.
The men are in an identity crisis.
SPIEGEL would have liked to talk to Andrew Kibe about it, but his manager said on the phone that they would charge a flat rate of $2,000 for an interview - so an interview couldn't take place.
A second "male blogger" also ignores several requests from SPIEGEL: Eric Amunga, known as Amerix.
He has even more followers than Kibe, 1.5 million in total.
Amerix packages its content as advice on “men’s health” and gives fitness and nutrition tips.
Like Andrew Tate.
He also occasionally offers advice for women on off," "make the bed."
And: “Don’t listen too much to your mother, because she is a woman like you.” Regarding the current femicides, he says: “Dating apps are brothels,” “your vagina is not an ATM.”
This probably means that anyone who meets men on dates and even wants to have sex shouldn't be surprised.
$2000 for an interview
Such posts are read, shared and commented on hundreds of thousands of times.
The director of the human rights organization Amnesty International recently complained in an interview with the BBC that these were not isolated cases, but rather an expression of a widespread culture of misogyny.
With serious consequences, because according to studies, at least one in three women in Kenya has already been a victim of physical violence.
An hour outside the city, between green hills, there is a so-called safe house hidden at the end of a small dirt road.
Njeri Wa Migwi honks in her small car and a woman opens the high metal gate shortly afterwards.
Migwi has loaded the trunk to the ceiling with toilet paper, flour, beans and other everyday items.
Her organization Usikimye runs the Safe House, where women and children who have experienced violence are accommodated.
“We opened our office again on Monday after the Christmas break,” says Wa Migwi, “and there were more than 30 women at the door who needed help.” She is certain that violence against women is increasing.
"These male bloggers have a lot of influence, it's like a cult," she says.
»They believe that women deserve to die just because they date men.
I’m so incredibly angry.”
The activist believes: The ingredients for the perfect storm are currently coming together in Kenya: a religiously influenced conservative society, patriarchal role models, poverty and an Internet-savvy young generation.
She and her fellow campaigners are now organizing a large demonstration at the end of January;
They want to paralyze the city center to draw attention to the rampant misogyny.
But in order to get the situation under control, what was missing were men of solidarity who would open their mouths.
Onyango Otieno is one of the very few who do this, practically around the clock.
When SPIEGEL visits him, he is watching football and the Africa Cup.
He sits in an oversized armchair in the living room in sweatpants and slippers.
“God is a black woman,” is written in neon marker on a wall in his apartment.
Otieno immediately gets up, runs into the kitchen and prepares tea and pancakes for the visitors.
Not a given for Kenyan men, not even in Otieno's generation.
He is 35.
Otieno is the anti-model to Kibe, Amerix and Co. He calls himself a feminist.
But there aren't many men like him in Kenya, nor anyone with the same volume and reach.
The commitment has its price: “I have already received death threats,” says Otieno.
He is also recognized again and again on the street, but these encounters usually remain peaceful, says the activist.
“These guys all chicken out in real life, they just act like a big deal online.”
Otieno has also organized workshops just for men.
In groups, the participants then have to think about what it means to be a man.
»Many people say: of course he is the boss of the house, he takes care of the woman.
At the same time, they are upset that women want to have more and more luxury.
I then ask her how it fits together.
And then some people start thinking,” says the Kenyan.
These workshops are often the first opportunity for men to talk about their feelings and be among themselves.
»They often stand together and talk for two hours after the event has ended.
You can literally feel how urgently they need it,” says the influencer.
But such opportunities are few and far between, while the Andrew Tate disciples online provide a patriarchal bonfire day after day.
“There are significantly more noisemakers,” admits Otieno.
He also tries to counter them online.
"I like to make these trolls angry, because anger makes you think." Otieno's favorite reaction to toxic men's tweets: laughing emoticons.
A user on X, formerly Twitter, just posted again: “You have to protect your wife.
She is beneath you.
She is yours.”
Otieno grabs his cell phone, simply repeats the words in a new post and puts a clown face behind them.
Even if he doesn't actually feel like laughing.
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