Nairobi, Kenya — Nearly two decades after Kenya’s 2007-08 post-election violence, the Supreme Court will hear final arguments on July 29, 2026, in a case that will decide the government’s constitutional duty to protect survivors of sexual violence committed by non-state actors.
The case concerns eight survivor-petitioners of election-related violence and originated before the High Court in Nairobi, which issued the initial judgment in the matter in 2020. Four of the survivors were denied compensation because their attackers were private individuals and they were unable to report the assaults to police amid the unrest. The other four survivors were assaulted by state security officers or had reported their assaults to police and received compensation after the High Court found that the state had failed to prevent, investigate, and prosecute the violence. Kenya’s Court of Appeal upheld this outcome in 2025, effectively creating a distinction among survivors based solely on the identity of the perpetrator, despite finding that the state had breached its constitutional and human rights obligation to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and ensure justice for all forms of sexual violence (known as the “due diligence” obligation).
The petitioners are asking the Supreme Court to correct what they describe as an inconsistency that has denied them an effective remedy for nearly two decades, while affirming the Court of Appeal’s finding that the state failed to meet its due diligence obligations despite knowing of the risk of violence. The petitioners are seeking compensation, access to medical and psychological rehabilitation, a public acknowledgment and apology from the government, and a Supreme Court declaration clarifying the government’s obligation to exercise due diligence in sexual violence cases going forward. For the petitioners, the Supreme Court provides the last chance for redress within the country’s legal system.
The case takes on added urgency ahead of next year’s presidential elections in Kenya, nearly twenty years after the post-election violence that gave rise to these claims.
WHO: The petitioners include eight survivors of Kenya’s 2007-08 post-election sexual violence, and four civil society organizations: Physicians for Human Rights, the Coalition on Violence Against Women, the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya, and the Independent Medico-Legal Unit.
WHAT: Final hearing for Supreme Court Petition No. SCPT/E041/2025: Coalition on Violence Against Women & 11 Others v. State Law Office, Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions & 3 Others
WHEN: Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 9:00 a.m. EAT
WHERE: The hearing will be held virtually before the Supreme Court of Kenya; the access link has not yet been released. The matter is listed before a five-judge bench: Chief Justice Martha K. Koome (President of the Supreme Court), Justice Njoki Ndung’u, Justice Isaac Lenaola, Justice William Ouko, and Justice Mohamed A. Warsame.
WHY: “The petitioner-survivors have continued to live with physical, psychological, and financial harm from the sexual violence they suffered during Kenya’s 2007-08 post-election unrest, for nearly two decades. To them, compensation is not just a number; it is recognition of what they endured and a step toward righting a wrong the state has left unaddressed for far too long. A decision in their favor would send a clear signal that sexual violence is a grave crime, that impunity has no place in Kenya’s democracy, and that survivors will not be forgotten. With Kenya’s next presidential elections quickly approaching, and recent election-related violence in neighboring countries, this ruling takes on even greater significance for the entire country,” said Suzanne Kidenda, Acting Head, Physicians for Human Rights-Kenya.
BACKGROUND: As part of the violence that swept the country following Kenya’s December 2007 presidential election, which killed more than 1,100 people, sexual violence occurred in six of the country’s eight provinces. At least 900 people were raped or subjected to other sexual and gender-based violence, much of it committed by security forces as well as by civilians and militias. Few cases were ever investigated or prosecuted.
In 2013, eight survivors, six women and two men, filed Constitutional Petition No. 122 of 2013 in the High Court in Nairobi, joined by four organizations: the Coalition on Violence Against Women, Physicians for Human Rights, the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya, and the Independent Medico-Legal Unit. The petition sought to hold the government accountable for failing to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and provide reparations for the violence.
In December 2020, the High Court in Nairobi ruled that the government had failed to investigate and prosecute the sexual violence effectively. Still, it recognized the harm suffered by only four of the eight petitioners, those assaulted by state security officers or who had reported to police, awarding each KES 4 million (about USD 30,900). The remaining four survivor-petitioners received nothing, both because their attackers were non-state actors and because the survivors themselves had not filed police reports.
In 2021, the survivors and the co-petitioner civil society organizations filed a partial appeal, arguing that the High Court’s distinction between survivors let the government escape responsibility for protecting all citizens from sexual violence, regardless of who carried it out. The Court of Appeal heard the case on February 4, 2025, and issued its judgment on August 8, 2025. The judgment recognized election-related sexual violence as torture and a crime against humanity and found that the state had prior knowledge of the risk of widespread violence but again limited compensation to survivors attacked by state agents.
On September 11, 2025, the four survivors and co-petitioner organizations filed a partial appeal to the Supreme Court, Kenya’s court of last resort, docketed as Petition No. SCPT/E041/2025. The petitioners argue that the Court of Appeal, having identified due diligence as the applicable human-rights standard, then applied an individualized negligence test borrowed from tort law, requiring proof of individual notice and breach, which has no place in a claim about the state’s systemic constitutional obligations. The state’s duties to investigate, prosecute, and provide reparations do not depend on whether a survivor could report an assault at the time, especially during a period of significant insecurity; requiring a report as a precondition punishes survivors for the trauma, stigma, and distrust of police that prevented them from coming forward.
For further information, or to set up an interview with the petitioners’ lawyers, contact: Suzanne Kidenda, Acting Head, Physicians for Human Rights – Kenya (PHR-Kenya) skidenda@phr.org
Physicians for Human Rights – Kenya (PHR-Kenya) is a registered organization in Kenya, with its office based in Nairobi, and works to strengthen justice, accountability, and survivor-centered responses to human rights violations through medico-legal capacity development, strategic litigation, research, and advocacy. Learn more here.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.