{"id":4492,"date":"2025-09-28T21:09:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T20:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/?p=4492"},"modified":"2025-12-13T10:32:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T10:32:47","slug":"condemning-gbv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/2025\/09\/28\/condemning-gbv\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>Condemning GBV<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (September 2<sup>nd<\/sup> 2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The VAA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kenya\u2019s Veteran Athletes Association unequivocally condemned the recent spate of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) that had claimed the lives of among others, Olympic athletes Agnes Tirop and Rebecca Cheptegui. The VAA, through its Organizing Secretary Simion Biwott (usually known as Simon) detailed what had happened in both cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier this year, Ibrahim Rotich, Agnes Tirop\u2019s husband and so-called coach absconded after buying his freedom. He had previously been arrested trying to flee Kenya shortly after Agnes Tirop was brutally murdered. Given that Rotich was an obvious flight risk, the question of why he was allowed his freedom on bail, especially while he was on trial for her murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yesterday at their Converse Meeting in Eldoret\u2019s Sirikwa Hotel, Biwott announced a four-point programme of activities that the VAA would conduct over the following year. One of them will be combatting GBV. They were also working with Tirop\u2019s Angels, an organisation established by Kenyan-born marathon runner, Joan Chelimo Melli who recently ran for Romania at the World Championships in Tokyo. Chelimo has recently established a new organisation, Strides for Africa to combat GBV and gender-based exploitation (GBE)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tirop\u2019s Angels demanded justice for Agnes Tirop, as does Strides for Africa which also educate the young on their rights and assist victims of GBV and GBE suffered by athletes, especially female ones \u2013 like Agnes Tirop and Rebecca Cheptegui, who were targeted emotionally by unscrupulous men seeking to take advantage of their athletic talent for economic gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For further information see <strong>Simon Biwott on Gender Violence in Kenyan Athletics <\/strong>&nbsp;below<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Simon Biwott on Gender Violence in Kenyan Athletics\" width=\"1220\" height=\"686\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/v9lEEhV9daw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (September 2nd 2025) The VAA Kenya\u2019s Veteran Athletes Association unequivocally condemned the recent spate of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) that had<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1232],"tags":[830,1519,1521,840,842,1518,1239,1242,1520],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4492"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4598,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4492\/revisions\/4598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}