Kenya to Implement Controversial Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation
Kenya is on the verge of enacting a law that would make overtly identifying with or supporting the LGBTQ+ community a crime punishable by the death penalty.
The East African nation’s proposed Family Protection Act would prohibit all activities that “promote homosexuality,” including explicitly identifying as LGBTQ+ or wearing Pride symbols.
Those convicted of breaking the law would face a minimum of 10 years in prison, while those convicted of same-sex offenses would face a minimum of 14 years in prison.
In addition, anyone found culpable under a clause for “aggravated homosexuality,” defined as “homosexual acts with a minor or disabled person and transmitting a terminal disease through sexual means,” was subject to the death penalty.
The bill closely resembles the Anti-Homosexuality Bill signed into law in Uganda earlier this year.
Similar bills are also being proposed in Tanzania and South Sudan, and Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, has indicated that an anti-LGBTQ+ bill is being proposed there, despite his reservations about its “constitutionality.”
MP George Peter Kaluma, who has shepherded the bill through the Kenyan parliament, stated that he and the bill’s proponents want to ban “everything having to do with homosexuality.”
He told the BBC, “The bill will propose a total ban on what the West calls sex-reassignment prescriptions and procedures and prohibit all activities that promote homosexuality.”
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He added that this would include Pride parades, drag shows, donning rainbow colors and flags, and proudly displaying “emblems of the LGBTQ+ group.” In Kenya, same-sex activities are already prohibited.
In response, a coalition of LGBTQ+ and human rights organizations urged the Biden administration in the United States to impose sanctions on Kenya if the measure were to become law.
At least fifty non-profit organizations urged the government, in an open letter published on Monday (17 July), to suspend Kenya’s Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership (STIP) until the measure was withdrawn.
The letter requested signatures on a petition to “cease US-Kenya trade negotiations until President William Ruto commits to vetoing legislation that criminalizes the LGBTQI+ community.”
In addition, a Zambian priest and professor at Boston University, Kapya Kaoma, told the BBC that he believes such legislation is the result of right-wing organizations’ lobbying efforts to impose “militant homophobia” in Africa.
“It is one thing to say, ‘I don’t agree with you being gay,’ but politicians are now saying, ‘You go to jail for life, and you go to jail for discussing being gay.'”
Annette Atieno, from the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, referred to the legislation as “hateful” and stated that it would make the lives of Kenyan gays and lesbians intolerable.
Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan US think tank, found in a 2019 survey that 83 percent of Kenyans believe society should not tolerate homosexuality.
Kenya to Implement Controversial Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation
