Dispatch from Mombasa

Since the country experienced the first grenade attack during campaigns for the new constitution in 2010, there has been a consistent rise in the number of attacks and the loss of life and property. Such attacks have been witnessed in Nairobi, Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Eastleigh and now Mombasa and about 30 people may have lost their lives while many others have been maimed for life due to the attacks. Of all the places that have been attacked Nairobi seems to have a fare share of the unprecedented and cowardly aggression with such places as the Kampala coach bus station, Eastleigh and the Machakos country bus station having been attacked. On its part, the Government has blamed every explosion on Somali’s Al-Shabab Islamic militia group. For that, it has promised not to “leave any stone unturned” in the investigations to unearth the perpetrators of the heinous acts. It says that the attacks are carried out because the Kenya Defence Forces are in Somalia pursuing the Al-Shabab ...

The world has been shocked by an online video that shows the brutal treatment of an Ethiopian housemaid Ms Alem Dechasa, 33 by people who are said to be her employers. Ms Dechasa is said to have later committed suicide in a Lebanese hospital probably to escape from the jaws of her tormentors or because of stress. The story that was exclusively aired by the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation last month and is now posted on social network site You tube shows the late Dechasa being manhandled by two men as they try to subdue her and put her into a vehicle. The story of Ms Dechasa brings us close to what we have heard and seen about the treatment of women working in Middle East countries and if it is anything to go by, then the experience is not only brutal but a gross violation of human rights. You might wonder what the story has to do with Kenya. In the recent past there have been claims by many Kenyan women who worked in Arabic countries as domestic servants about the mistreatm...