The book, In the Shadow of Death: My Trauma, my Experience is a public testimony of what ma-jority of women went through during the post-election violence that engulfed Kenya immediately after the Electoral Commission of Kenya announced the results for the hotly-contested presidential polls of the December 2007 General Election. The crisis brought to the fore a number of factors that separate our society and that for a long time have been ignored by successive post-independence governments: poverty, land, inequality; and tribalism, amongst others.

The publication singles out the major highlights of the crisis based on the thematic experiences of women. Such angles include physical abuse, psychological torture, sexual violence, homelessness, widowhood, and economic woes. Testimonies in the book end with messages of hope, achieved through individual endurance. It concludes by reminding women who suffered all manner of vio-lence in post-election times that determination, individual focus and tenacity are the main recipes for touching the sky of hope.

In the Shadow of Death: My Trauma, My Experience
Published by African Woman and Child Feature Service (AWC), Heinrich Böll Stiftung East and Horn of Africa, and COVAW. Nairobi. 2008. 52 pages.

Download the complete publication (52 p., 1.47 MB, PDF)