United Nations agencies, the World Athletics Federation and others reacted with shock and anger at the death of Ugandan Olympic marathoner Rebecca Cheptegei, who died Thursday after being set on fire by her ex-boyfriend.
The case is shining a light on domestic violence in the region. Human rights groups are calling for stronger legal measures to protect women who suffer at the hands of their domestic partners.
Every hour, six women lose their lives to femicide worldwide, according to U.N. Women and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on Thursday told reporters in Geneva that Cheptegei’s brutal murder illustrates a much bigger, and too often ignored, problem.
Back in Uganda, relatives waited for Cheptegei’s body to be returned from Eldoret, Kenya, where she was being treated for severe burns after her ex-boyfriend set her on fire during a dispute Sunday.
Trans Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom said Monday that Dickson Ndiema bought a can of gasoline, poured it on Cheptegei and set her ablaze during a disagreement. Ndiema was also burned and was being treated at the same hospital.
Beatrice Ayikoru, secretary general of the Uganda Athletics Federation, said Cheptegei’s death is a wake-up call that many elite athletes are targeted.
“This is an eye-opener for many of us in sports,” she said. “There is a silent violence against women, especially the female athletes. We need to fight for safe sports.”
Cheptegei’s death is a dark reminder of what’s been happening for years. In the East African country of Kenya, gender-based violence against women athletes came to public attention in 2021 when long-distance runner Agnes Tirop was stabbed and beaten to death. In 2022, Olympic runner Damaris Muthee Mutua was found strangled. Both women lost their lives at the hands of their male partners.
In a statement, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said that it was time to assess how safety policies might be enhanced to include abuse outside of the sport and protect female athletes from abuse of all kinds.
In 2021, after the death of Kenyan world-record holder Tirop, fellow marathoner Viola Cheptoo Lagat started a foundation called Tirop’s Angels and has since been speaking against domestic violence.
She said prize money can be at the root of these attacks.
“When they come from races, their boyfriends want their money, and then they go misuse the money,” she said. “And then another problem is the society. We have allowed it to happen that we don’t even condemn it anymore. We’ve made it a norm to see a woman being beaten — to see somebody snatching somebody’s property and us not screaming out loud about it until somebody is lost.”
Kipchumba Murkomen, Kenya’s cabinet secretary for youth affairs and sports, said Thursday that gender violence has again reared its head in the world of elite sports, insisting that government officials are obligated to seek justice.
Wangechi Wachira, executive director of the Center for Rights Education and Awareness, a feminist nongovernmental organization in Kenya, said it is time to stop calling these murders domestic violence, but rather acts of femicide.
“By the time a woman has the courage to go to a police station, it means that they’ve gotten another level of courage to say, finally, beyond the social structures, ‘I am moving to a police station, then I can be able to get help.’ We don’t see the wheels of justice moving as fast as they should,” Whachira said.
Cheptoo said there’s more work to be done.
“It has to be a whole community coming together and working towards ending GBV,”she said, referring to gender-based violence. “That way we don’t have to say, ‘Not again.’”
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press.
