When he was an opposition MP, John Healey accused Britain’s Conservative government of “sitting on their hands” over the murder of my aunt Agnes Wanjiru and said they “should be pursuing justice”.
A few months after he made these comments, Labour won the UK election and Healey became defence secretary.
We hoped he would live up to his words and immediately asked for a meeting. He told the media he “would be happy to meet” us “in due course.”
Then ITV broadcast a documentary in September highlighting my aunt’s case, which prompted Healey to say there would be an inquiry into her murder and reiterated that he would meet with us.
We were delighted. But two and half months later, we are yet to see him.
What’s worse, it turns out the inquiry won’t cover Agnes’ case, instead focusing on more recent allegations of soldiers paying for sex.
That’s why we are protesting today – in the face of tear gas – outside Kenya’s supreme court in Nairobi alongside other families affected by femicide.
We know that all over the world, women and girls are subjected to abuse, harassment and violence.
Police say 97 women have been killed here in just three months by either their boyfriend, husband or people who are known to them.
For many of us at this protest though, it is the involvement of foreign troops in incidents like this that makes justice particularly difficult to obtain.
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Playing games
My aunt’s case was reopened three years ago after a coroner’s inquest found a UK soldier was likely to have killed her. This generated international controversy, but what amazes me is that the killer is still at large.
We applied to Nairobi’s High Court – with help from the African Centre for Corrective and Preventative Action (ACCPA) – for the suspect to be extradited, but to no avail.
It feels like governments in London and Nairobi are playing games with us.
Healey was quick to tell the media he would meet us, but hasn’t fulfilled his promise. He is not the only one. Conservative armed forces minister James Heappey did the same.
Since my aunt’s murder in 2012, Britain has had five defence secretaries, six prime ministers, four ambassadors to Nairobi and five directors of public prosecutions (DPPs). None of them were willing or able to get justice.
It is distressing and heartbreaking to see that Kenya’s authorities have failed us too. There have been three presidents, three chief justices, three DPPs, three directors of criminal investigations and four attorney generals over the same time period.
This tells us that we have a very weak system of justice and our leaders don’t care about the victims of British atrocities, or perhaps they are in someone’s pocket?
I even wrote to King Charles, as he’s commander-in-chief of Britain’s armed forces. I asked him to ensure his men cannot get away murder and see that the prime suspect hands himself in.
As the alleged perpetrator is still walking free, surely this poses a danger to the lives of people in the UK?
Yet we are the ones treated like criminals. When King Charles came to visit Kenya last year, we were about to hold a press conference until police raided our venue and silenced us.
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Deadbeat dads
Sadly our family’s case is not unique in Kenya. I’ve seen mothers abandoned by British soldiers who got them pregnant while working near their training grounds in Nanyuki and Samburu.
These deadbeat dads have really caused a lot of suffering, especially as their children then get bullied for being mixed race.
And it really breaks my heart when I hear stories from women in Nanyuki saying how they were taken advantage of by British soldiers, because they are so poor that they offered sex to afford life.
These women are often mistreated, sexually harassed and one was even raped with a bottle.
There are similar stories far away from Nanyuki town in the countryside around Samburu where British soldiers exercise with live ammunition and white phosphorus.
These girls are sacred to report such crimes as the sexual violence desk at Nanyuki police station is funded by the British army, who they don’t trust. They ask, how can you investigate your donor?
Another woman was even allegedly killed by a British soldier. Sixteen-year-old Mantoi Lekoloi Kaunda died in the 1990s and her sister Noldonyio Piro was raped.
Mantoi’s body was exhumed in 2004 and a foreign hair found on her pubis, but the family have never been told the results of the DNA test. The British army now refuses to hand over military police files on her case.
I’m told the UK’s House of Commons has a tradition of naming victims of human rights abuses. Yet you’ll struggle to find the names of many of these Kenyan victims in Hansard.
Do they not care if the perpetrators are their very own soldiers?
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Neocolonialism
My aunt’s murder makes me feel that Kenya is under neocolonialism even after being independent for 61 years.
Despite the colonial generation’s sacrifice, the British army is still here. It never left and continues to take us for granted.
During colonial times women and girls were often subjected to sexual exploitation and abuse by colonial officials, settlers and soldiers.
Rape and other forms of sexual violence were used as tools of oppression, particularly during the Mau Mau uprising.
Some women were coerced into marriages with colonial administrators or soldiers, losing their autonomy and being treated as commodities.
Women were tortured to extract information about rebel activities, often using degrading and brutal methods which caused death to some of them.
It is heartbreaking and saddening to see abuse and the culture of impunity by British soldiers has never stopped.
