From Crisis to Accountability: Moral Leadership, Gender-Based Violence Prevention, and Lessons from Rural Migori County, Kenya for an Age of Polycrisis

Résumé fourni par la source

Before COVID-19, the World Bank (2019) reported that 35% of women globally experienced physical or sexual violence. The United Nations Development Programme (2020) documented a surge in gender-based violence (GBV) during the pandemic, with an estimated 15 million additional cases for every three months of lockdown. COVID-19 prevention measures, lockdowns, curfews, and school and business closures, exposed and deepened pre-existing fault lines across health systems, economies, and governance structures, disproportionately burdening women in rural communities with heightened unemployment, poverty, and diminished access to essential services. This study examines the intersection of moral leadership, GBV prevention, and compounding crises in rural Migori County, Kenya, drawing on interviews with six policymakers and eighteen pregnant women or new mothers to assess how lockdowns and movement restrictions directly escalated GBV among vulnerable populations. The inclusion of pregnant women and new mothers centers the voices of those at greatest intersectional risk, navigating simultaneous health, economic, and safety precarity during crisis conditions. Findings reveal that entrenched gender norms normalize GBV and entrench inequality, while also illuminating accountability gaps in local and national policy responses. Situated within an era of polycrisis, where health emergencies, financial instability, and political fragility converge. This study advances a moral and transformational leadership framework for dismantling structural conditions that enable GBV. Lessons from Migori County offer transferable evidence for policymakers, practitioners, and scholars navigating the compounding crises of the present moment.

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