Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. Introduction Sexual violence has historically plagued societies the world over, and presently is one of the most highly legislated forms of gendered violence. Numerous pieces of legislation against sexual violence exist in the form of international conventions, resolutions of the United Nations, regional conventions, statutes, laws and policies at state level. While there would surely be higher levels of violence in societies without rules, experience in many African countries shows that the formal presence of laws does not necessarily mitigate violence. Equally perplexing, the formal installation of democracy and support for the increased participation of women in politics has not significantly reduced the incidence of violence against women. Indeed, as I will show below, in Kenya sexual violence has increased during periods of electoral campaigning. Multiparty democracy is valorised in literature on transitions to democracy as a means of containing violence and stabilising political contestation (Przeworksi 1991, 2003, 2004; Diamond 1999; Diamond and Plattner 2010). In this thesis, I grapple with the paradox that in countries such as Kenya, neither ethnic nor sexual violence has diminished and sexual violence attached to politics has increased. The prevalence of gendered and sexualized forms of violence against women in the context of Kenya's democratic politics has far-reaching implications for democracy as a whole. Firstly, for women as political actors, these forms of violence have militated against women's ability to freely and fairly access spaces of political contestations. Gender and sexual violence recorded during successive electioneering periods in Kenya since 1991 has delimited the ways in which Kenyan women experience democratic politics, and consequently influenced the outcomes of their political participation. Secondly, a substantive body of feminist theorization has shown that victims of rape suffer serious physiological and emotional trauma that is highly instrumentalised (Skjelsbæk 2001, 2007; Turshen 2001; Nikolic-Ristanovic 1997).1 The instrumentalization of sexual violence and ethnic violence by party elites, who organize politics through politicizing ethnicity, has historically been observed in Kenya too, and the ways in which this functions in the context of democratic politics deserves interrogation. I will discuss the concept of instrumentalization of sexual violence in more depth in Chapter 2 and show how the targeting of women for gendered violence has 1 The literature on sexual violence occurring during wartime suggests that women and girls are deliberately targeted by their attackers. Such targeted violence has been shown to have subjective and often politicized aims. There are, 1 functioned in the context of Kenyan elections in Chapter 5 and 7. Thirdly, statistics show that the women most affected by gendered and sexualized violence in Kenya's electioneering context are demographically situated in low income residential areas and predominantly work in the informal labour sector. This suggests a nexus between class, sexuality and violence which might constitute an explanatory variable in understanding why certain women are rendered more vulnerable to sexual violence than other women. Fourthly, democratic politics lays out certain ethical boundaries within which the state might be considered to be functioning as an effective democracy (see Chapter 2). The fact that sexual violence persists in the context of democratization as observed in Kenya implies a violation of these codes, and suggests the existence of cracks in the very foundations of democratic practice in Kenya, which continually render women vulnerable to certain forms of violence. It is these implied cracks that this thesis sets out to critically interrogate. A core set of questions arise out of the concerns outlined above: i) Why are democratic elections in Kenya not producing stable and safe methods of political contestation? ii) In what ways is sexual violence during elections mediated by women's economic status? iii) Why is sexual violence instrumentalised in Kenya's electoral context, and what purpose does violence in general, and sexual violence in particular serve in that context? iv) How may we understand the nature of gendered and sexualized violence in the context of democratization – where a functioning police force (see Chapter 2) is presumed to be in place and working to secure liberal spaces for democratic politics? A further set of questions shall guide my analysis of the research problem: • What patterns can be observed from a historical analysis of sexual and gender violence occurring within Kenya's political trajectory from colonialism to democratization? • Which discursive forms of power operate in the context of Kenya’s democratic elections and what is their relationship to violence in general and sexual violence in particular? • Is there a positive relationship between democratizing states with effective policing systems and reduction in cases of sexual violence? • What are the state’s responses to sexual violence occurring within the framework of political contestations? • What is the response of women’s organisations to sexual violence occurring during elections? 2 Methodologically and ontologically, I approach these questions through a case study of electioneering violence observed in Kenya in the course of multiparty politics from 1992-2007. The study is situated within a feminist historical materialist theoretical framework, whose parameters provide for the analysis of gender and sexuality in relation to society as a totality (see chapter outline below, and Chapter 3 on methodology). The two main bodies of theory I apply to the study of sexual violence in the context of elections are democratic theory and theories of sexual violence (see Chapter 2). 1.2. Limitations of the study The literature discussed briefly below (see Chapter 7) suggests an increase in cases of sexual violence observed during electioneering periods in Kenya since the onset of multiparty democracy. There is, however, a paucity of comprehensive data on violence that occurred during elections in the early years of democratization (1992 and 1997) under President Daniel Arap Moi. Some scholars have explained this lack of data as owing to the donor community’s vested interest in the success of multipartyism. Stephen Brown (2001) for instance argues in the case of Kenya that donors were reluctant to rock the boat further following the legalisation of opposition parties, viewing this as the reason they might have failed to support strategies that might have furthered the democratization agenda. This they did by supressing evidence of electoral fraud, endorsing elections which they knew had not been free and fair, and stiffling the efforts of those who were seeking comprehensive reforms locally. Although faced with growing popular dissent and mobilisation against the incumbent regime, Brown (2001) argues that for donors, the objective of sustaining political and economic order remained a primary concern, even if this meant legitimizing and prolonging Moi’s authoritarian regime. Brown (2001) offers an extensive account of what he claims was donors' complicity in endorsing unfair elections during the early years of multiparty elections in Kenya. He attributes the Moi regime’s legalisation of opposition parties in December 1991 to donors’ suspension of financial assistance. The fact that the constitutional amendments implemented by KANU extended only toward allowing the registration of multiple parties without touching the repressive state apparatus which remained at his disposal, should have signalled the fact that little would change in the prevailing status quo. Donors, Brown argues, were well aware of the problem this presented, yet did not do much more than issue a mundane joint statement to Moi expressing their ‘deep concern’ on the matter (Brown 2001: 73). Progressive forces in the country were less benign in their response, yet a movement emerged that sought in effect to encourage parties to abstain from elections received little support from the ‘pro-democracy’ donor pundits. Indeed conversely, donors were 3 fingered as having played a role in thwarting such efforts based upon only minimal concessions from the Moi regime. Abuses against dissenting forces during the campaign period severely hampered possibilities of free and fair elections, and as this reality set in, three of the major parties in the opposition again issued threats that they would snub the elections. This idea was, however, quickly abandoned after Church leaders, foreign observers and the US Ambassador condemned the move, expressing consensus around the idea that it would be better to lose at the polls and gain seats in parliament than not be represented at all. Even when the leaders of the major opposition parties openly refused to accept the electoral outcome, donors and the religious leaders prevailed upon them to take up the parliamentary positions and challenge the electoral outcome from ‘inside’, using the channels of the judiciary (Brown 2001), which itself was co-opted and firmly under the control of the executive arm of government. According to Brown (2001), reference to donor complicity in supporting undemocratic electoral outcomes was retrospectively acknowleged when, for instance, the head of the United States embassy in Kenya acknowledged error in his judgements and the calls he took in relation to the elections. He conceded, in