'Will I be next?': Fear haunts Kenyan women athletes after Cheptegei murder (trigger warning violence)
(lengthy, incredibly difficult and horrific read. GODDAMNED FUCKING WOMAN-HATING PATRIARCHY)
‘Will I be next?’: Fear haunts Kenyan women athletes after Cheptegei murder (trigger warning violence)
At least four professional female runners have been murdered by their intimate male partners since 2021.
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People attend the burial of late Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei in Bukwo, Uganda, on September 14, 2024 [Badru Katumba/AFP]
By Shola Lawal
Published On 10 Oct 202410 Oct 2024
It was a sun-baked August day on the streets of the French capital, Paris, when Rebecca Cheptegei rushed across the finish line of the women’s marathon at the 2024 Summer Olympics. The 33-year-old elite long-distance runner came only 44th in the race, but Uganda’s women’s marathon record holder was riding the high of her first Olympic Games, with years of races ahead of her. But just four weeks later, she was dead – murdered by her ex-partner at her home in the quiet village of Kinyoro in Kenya’s western Rift Valley region.
The horror of her killing left East Africa reeling. For years, women have suffered physical and sexual abuse, including gruesome murders, from partners, spouses and other male family members in Kenya. Cheptegei’s killing underscored how even successful, elite athletes weren’t safe. Yet, according to female athletes and the organisations supporting them, it is the very success these women achieved that may have made them a target among men still governed by more patriarchal gender norms. One in three women in Kenya reports at least a case of abuse by the age of 18, according to Kenyan charity, the Gender Violence Recovery Centre, largely from their intimate male partners, male family members, or other males known to them.
In January this year alone, there were at least 32 women murdered by male perpetrators – about one woman every day – according to Femicide Count Kenya, a monitoring group tracking media-reported femicides – or the intentional murder of a woman by a man. Although hundreds of women marched in the streets of Nairobi calling for an end to violence against women in a massive January demonstration, the killings have continued through the year, said Audrey Mugeni, co-founder of Femicide Count. “We had 154 cases by the end of last year … we are already at 174 now,” Mugeni said. At the present rate of killings, the femicide count for 2024 will pass 200 cases by the end of the year, she added.
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People gathered in Nairobi to protest against increasing violence against women in Kenya, in January 2024 [Gerald Andersen/Anadolu Agency]
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Rebecca Cheptegei in action during the women’s marathon final in Hungary in 2023 [Dylan Martinez/Reuters]
Tirop’s Angels
At least three other female runners have been murdered in Kenya since 2020. The death of long-distance runner Agnes Tirop, who was murdered in 2021, has left lasting effects. A small-statured athlete, Tirop once sported a closely cropped cut but was beginning to flaunt braids and flashy long nails on the track as she evolved from a junior athlete to a senior. In September 2021, she put on a dazzling performance in Germany, smashing the world record in the 10,000km world women’s race – called the 10k road race. Barely a month later, on October 13, she was found stabbed to death in her home in Iten. Police confirmed her husband and coach, Ibrahim Rotich, was the main suspect. Tirop was only 25.
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Dina Tirop, mother of murdered Kenyan distance runner Agnes Tirop, poses with Tirop’s portrait and a trophy at her home in Kapyemisa, in 2021 [Casmir Odour/AFP]
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Motorcyclists pass under a town sign on the way to the house of Kenyan distance runner Agnes Tirop, who was found dead with stab wounds to her stomach in Iten in 2021 [Casmir Oduor/AFP]
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Agnes Cheptegei mourns next to the coffin of her daughter and Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who died after her former partner doused her in petrol and set her ablaze, in September 2024 [Edwin Waita/Reuters]
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Video Duration 25 minutes 35 seconds 25:35
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/10/10/rebecca-cheptegei-and-the-epidemic-of-women-athletes-killed-by-men-in-kenya