Withdraw family protection Bill, urges Human rights activists

Nakuru, Tuesday May 2023 

KNA By Jane Ngugi and Dennis Rasto 

Human rights activists have poked holes in the family protection bill and now want the entire Bill shelved.

The lobbyists under the auspices of Kenyan Families Coalition want parliament to reject the Bill which is sponsored by Homa Bay MP Peter Kaluma.

Through their spokesman Martin Lenalo, the group has indicated that there are provisions in the bill that are problematic and dangerous if it gets approved into law.

“The bill should be shelved to allow for more consultations. We appeal to Members of the National Assembly to reject this Bill,” said Mr Lenalo who read the statement on behalf of other lobbyists.

Addressing the media at a Nakuru hotel the activists termed the family protection Bill as “fundamentally defective” and called for its redrafting.

“The family protection bill is fundamentally defective, is vague on the emotive technical issues Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA). We urge honourable Kaluma to withdraw the Bill, build consensus on the fundamental flaws and have it redrafted,” before presenting it to Parliament again,” the statement read in part.

Mr Lenalo said the proposed statute had “deliberate loopholes” that would make it easy for ‘ordinary citizens to challenge its validity in law.

He noted the Bill was in contravention of Article 27, which is the Equal Protection of the Constitution, that provides “every person” is “equal before the law” and has the “right to equal protection” before the law.

Mr Lunalo stated “The Bill of Rights in the 2010 Constitution is a superior species of law. Nothing can contradict, or override, the rights therein. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights are the rights of a particular group or community proscribed, or limited.”

He went on “Further, Article 27 (4) prohibits discrimination on the grounds of “sex”. The prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sex has been understood to include sexual orientation. The Constitution eliminates all wiggle room by prohibiting both direct and indirect discrimination.”

Mr Kaluma’s Bill seeks to criminalise homosexuality, same-sex marriages, and LGBTQ behaviors.

If the Bill is passed into law, it will criminalise the promotion, recruitment, and funding of homosexuality and LGBTQ.

"I have submitted the Family Protection Bill to the National Assembly. It seeks to ban comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in Pre-primary, primary and secondary schools education programmes," he said.

Kaluma wants sexual health and sexual health rights education banned.

The Bill, if passed will uphold the prior rights of parents and guardians to their children’s education.

It will reassert the rights of parents to be informed and to consent to sexuality education, and abortion procedures involving their children.

According to Kaluma, the bill defines sex as the biological state of being male or female observed and assigned at birth.

The MP also wants the state to limit rights to assembly, demonstration, association, expression, belief, privacy, and employment in childcare institutions in respect of homosexual convicts.

The bill further prohibits adoption by homosexuals and proscribes sex acts on animals.

The legislator said the bill if passed will have the penalty imposed under the proposed Act ranges from the imprisonment of at least 10 years to death.

Kaluma has since maintained that homosexuals should be punished because it is illegal in Kenya.

This comes in the midst of a national debate following the Supreme Court's ruling to allow the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC) to be registered as a legal NGO.

The court ruled that although homosexuality is illegal in Kenya, it cannot deny the community the right to association.

The MP said the proposed law is intended to protect the family unit with the proposed hefty penalties geared towards discouraging the practice.

“It will not only consolidate existing laws relating to unnatural sexual acts but also increase the penalty for those convicted of engaging or promoting the acts to life imprisonment,” he stated.

Atheists have come out to protest the proposal by MP Kaluma saying the legislator should instead promote human rights.

Kaluma has since maintained that homosexuals should be punished because it is illegal in Kenya.

Mr Lenalo stated that the legal philosophy of the new Constitution is “emancipatory” adding that it’s not a repressive document that takes away rights, or imagines a closed or rigid category of rights.

“On the contrary, the Constitution imagines the vistas of human freedom and liberty to be boundless. It’s a living, not a dead document, one that is frozen in time,” he said.

Courtesy; K.N.A