The Unspoken Failure of Protection Systems The news reports have documented that women in Bungoma County and around Mount Elgon are being coerced into exchanging sex for firewood. The Kenya Forest Service has responded that no cases have been formally reported to them. But this tells us nothing about whether the abuse is happening, and everything about whether anyone has created a pathway for survivors to speak. Consider what a woman or girl carries home from that forest. She carries firewood. She carries shame. And if she has been raped, she carries bleeding that is not her period but looks exactly like it to anyone who does not ask. Where does she go? To the local chief who drinks with the men controlling the forest? To a police station hours away that requires transport money and a written statement taken by a male officer who will ask why she was in the forest alone? To a health clinic that demands a fee for a post-rape exam and offers no clean cloth or pad to manage the af...