Draft Bill Proposes Harsh Penalties Against Gays.

Caroline Wafula

Whether or not Kenya will legislate against gay practice is now a subject under parliamentary consideration after a political party asked Parliament to do so.

The Republican Liberty Party has proposed stoning of gay people to death in public or life imprisonment.

The party has presented to the National Assembly a draft Bill prohibiting any form of sexual relations between people of the same sex.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill is now before the Justice and Legal Affairs committee which will consider the proposal and report back to members on its decision.

The draft Bill presented alongside a petition by the party’s legal secretary Edward Onwong’a Nyakeriga provides for the offence of sodomy which would earn life imprisonment.

They propose death by stoning in public for any foreigner who commits a homosexual act and a life imprisonment for Kenyan nationals found guilty.


Anyone found guilty of aggravated homosexuality would also be stoned to death in public.

Aggravated homosexuality in this case would include committing the acts with people below 18 years, if the offender is a person living with HIV, if those persons committing the act are persons in authority over their victims, serial offenders and where a victim is a person with a disability.

The petitioner states that the Bill aims at strengthening the nation’s capacity to deal with emerging internal and external threats to the traditional heterosexual family.


The latest move could be part of the push for anti-gay law started by the parliamentary caucus against gay practices in Kenya.

A group of MPs formed the caucus in February and declared an uncompromising onslaught on homosexuality in Kenya. The MPs said they would, through the caucus, rally their colleagues in Parliament to fully enforce current relevant parts of the law that prohibit gay practices.

The Republican Liberty Party says that Kenya lacks a comprehensive provision catering for anti-homosexuality and that the proposed legislation is designed to fill the gaps in the current laws.

Further, the petitioner argues that the legislation recognises the fact that same sex attraction is not an inborn and unchallengeable characteristic.



The latest move comes just a few days after the Ugandan Constitutional Court declared as null and void the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014 on a technicality.

The Court ruled that Parliament did not have the required quorum when members passed it last December.

The Act had set a life imprisonment penalty. A death sentence had been initially proposed. President Yoweri Museveni signed it into law in February.

Brothels for homosexuality purposes are also marked in the draft Bill, whith those running them risking life imprisonment.

The parliamentary anti-gay caucus consists of among others, MPs Irungu Kang’ata (Kiharu), Julius Ndegwa (Lamu West) John Njoroge (Kasarani), Clement Wambugu (Mathioya) Stephen Kinyanjui (Kinangop).