Former Nairobi County Woman Rep Rachel Shebesh has expressed her disappointment in the government's inability to implement rules aimed at curbing gender-based violence.
Speaking during a presser on Tuesday in Nairobi while flanked by other women leaders, she bemoaned the normalisation of violence against women and called out the police for not doing enough.
She claimed that the gender desks in police stations had been done away with, complicating efforts to fight violence against women.
"Unfortunately, we have normalised GBV (Gender Based Violence). It is very normal people passing by as a woman is being violated... Our biggest disappointment in government, let me say, is implementation of these laws.
"We have a serious disconnect between the police, the judiciary and the gender department desk where I work. We have been at pains to ask the police to return the gender desks that were put in place after the gender offences act was passed," said Shebesh.
In her strongly-worded statement, the outspoken leader did not mince words, saying that the government had failed victims of sexual violence.
She called on the paradigm to shift in the approach to deal with violence against women.
"And what I have seen in this country, those young girls and those mature women who are lying in their graves, their families crying... As a government we must accept that we have failed them," she added.