Rebecca Cheptegei's killing revives painful memories for domestic violence survivor

Moureen Atieno Omolo was unable to sleep for days after hearing about the deadly attack on Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, whose former boyfriend doused her in petrol and set her ablaze on Sunday.

Every time the now 36-year-old Kenyan closed her eyes, memories of her own nightmarish marriage came flooding back.

Cheptegei, 33, who competed in her first Olympic Games in Paris last month, is the third elite sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Her death has cast a fresh spotlight on domestic violence in the East African nation.

"Rebecca's death brings into focus the scourge of violence that women around the world are subjected to, often from those they should trust most," United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Natalia Kanem said on Friday.

Globally, a woman is killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes, according to a 2023 UN Women study.

Cheptegei's distraught father, Joseph Cheptegei, told Reuters that the family was still in shock.

"We haven't gotten around to filing murder charges," he said.

The attacker, who also sustained burns and is in hospital, was his daughter's former boyfriend, he said, adding that the pair had split in February this year.

On Friday, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the French capital would name a sports facility in honour of Cheptegei, who finished 44th in her Olympic marathon debut there last month.

GRIM RECORD

Kenya has a grim record on violence against women.

Nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women at particular risk. The 2022 survey found that 41% of married women had faced violence.

A report by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said that in 2022, African countries collectively recorded the largest number of killings of women, both in absolute terms and relative to the size of the continent's female population.

Orphaned in her teens, Omolo was married at the age of 15 to a man aged 22.

The abuse began almost immediately, she told Reuters, eventually escalating to the point of him gouging out her left eye and slashing her left hand with a machete in 2018.

The attack and his threats to kill their three children led her to abandon the marriage and file a case against him.

"I should have left him years ago when he first threatened me," she said.

"He took away my self-confidence."

Cheptegei's killing has prompted calls for stronger action against domestic violence.

"We are failing our women," Zaina Kombo of Amnesty International Kenya told Reuters.