December 10, 2024
The Pan-African Socialist Alliance stands in solidarity with the Kenyan people as they resist patriarchal violence in the form of femicide.
Femicide is the result of Patriarchal violence and can never be resolved in oppressive systems such as the one we currently live in here in Kenya, Capitalism.
Capitalism, like other hierarchical systems, weaponizes patriarchy to oppress people on the basis of gender.
Femicide, the murder of women by men, is only one expression of Patriarchal violence.
Patriarchy uses violence to control oppressed genders' labour, sexuality and reproduction. The violence can either be fast, as in the outright murder of 97 women in 90 days here in Kenya, or slow as in the case of state policies that systematically deny women access to land, food and freedom. The Kenyan government, in total disregard to its constitutional obligation, has meanwhile proved unwilling and unable to protect the women of Kenya from femicide, despite the ever-growing appeals by the people of Kenya.
It is for this reason that the Pan-African Socialist Alliance joins the people of Kenya in reiterating the call "Ruto Must Go!"
Clearly, the Kenyan neo-colonial state is patriarchal; it carries forth a slow genocidal campaign against the working class; those who own nothing but their labour.
Femicide is a form of this genocide. Working women in this neo-colonial state suffer triple exploitation; that of their labour as workers, that of their country's land and resources by imperialist states and corporations and that of their gender by the instruments of patriarchy.
It is also important to note that whereas all women experience patriarchal violence, ruling class women and men don't experience class oppression and benefit from the neo-colonial capitalist state.
Working class women can only be free when liberation from the neo-colonial patriarchal state is achieved. No reforms can free working women from their national/class/gender oppression.
With this, we insist that working women must be organized. They must organize for power. They must organize inside revolutionary parties and other workers' organizations.
These are the organizations that can and will vanguard the fight against patriarchal violence in all its forms, including femicide and the structural genocide perpetuated by neo-colonial capitalism.
Down with patriarchy, violence and oppression!
All for the total liberation of women and all oppressed people!
The Communist Party Marxist, CPM-Kenya, is at the core of the Pan African Socialist Alliance (PASA)