Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei murder: More must be done to protect female athletes

UN Women strongly condemns the murder in Kenya of the Ugandan Athlete Rebecca Cheptegei. She is the third elite female runner to be murdered in a most violent way in the past three years in Kenya. The suspects in all three cases were intimate partners of the slain athletes. Society roots for these athletes to win and bring medals home, and more must be done to protect them.

Like the two victims before her, Cheptegei was a rising female star athlete who was clearly making a name for herself, doing what she loved the most, running. As an Olympic athlete, she had her future ahead of her to realize all her dreams, but this was cut short by a supposed ex-partner. Rebecca’s tragic death brings to light, once again, the growing problem of femicide in Kenya and around the world. Globally, there were 89,000 reports of women and girls murdered in 2022, the highest number recorded in 20 years. More than half of the women and girls were killed by intimate partners or other family members. Femicide and these reports do not occur in a vacuum and are part of a wider spectrum of violence against women and girls and the pushback against gender equality that continues to grow. All too often and across countries, there is impunity for perpetrators.

Governments have the urgent responsibility to reverse and stop the growing trend of femicide by investing in proven strategies to prevent violence against women and to address the impunity that often goes with these cases.

UN Women is committed to prevent femicide and all forms of gender-based violence, supporting the long-standing work of women's rights organizations as key advocates for change, working with men and boys to transform patriarchal forms of masculinity, working with communities to transform discriminatory social and gender norms, and providing technical and financial assistance to state institutions, including specialized training for police and the judiciary as part of coordinated multi-sectoral responses essential to bringing an end to impunity.