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Homosexuality serious as terrorism – Duale

"We need to go on and address this issue the way we want to address terrorism"/FILE

“We need to go on and address this issue the way we want to address terrorism”/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 26 – Majority Leader in the National Assembly Aden Duale on Wednesday equated homosexuality in Kenya to terrorism.

He termed homosexuality a social problem whose roots have now emerged at the secondary school level where students have come out in public citing cases of forced lesbianism and sodomy by fellow students.

“We need to go on and address this issue the way we want to address terrorism. It’s as serious as terrorism. It’s as serious as any other social evil,” said Duale.

Duale urged religious leaders to spearhead sensitisation programmes to avoid stigmatisation as reported in Uganda.

“I am sure that if our religious leaders are watching me, that is where we should start. We should preach against this and preach the holy books, the leaders have a role to do civic education,” the Garissa Township MP added.

The Majority Leader was speaking in the House when he delivered a statement by the Internal Security Ministry in response to Kiharu MP Irungu Kangata’s query on what the government is doing to enforce laws that prohibit homosexual tendencies.

Duale also resisted a suggestion by some MPs that the Government introduce express laws against homosexuality like Uganda has.

“I want to warn you that this is a Western agenda and if go further some of you will miss a visa, that is how serious it is to this western government,” the Majority Leader told his colleagues.

“I am not predicting what they are going to do but as a God fearing nation; we must at all times ask our government to implement the law to ensure that we reduce this vice in our society.”

The Ministry of Internal Security said that they had got convictions in 595 cases of bestiality and gays which were taken to court since 2010, when the Constitution came into force.

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Duale told the House that the police are not aware of any organisations that promote the violation of Penal Code that prohibit sexual activities contrary to the order of nature.

The Penal Code states that a person who has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature or who allows it to be done to them is liable to imprisonment for seven years.

In the statement tabled in the House during Wednesday’s morning sitting, Rift Valley has had the biggest number of homosexuality cases at 204, followed by Eastern -161 cases, Central -85 cases, Coast -63 cases, Nairobi- 40 cases, Nyanza- 33 cases, Western- 25 cases and North Eastern- 9 cases.

Duale noted that some of the gay incidents were forced on victims and cited the lack of witnesses to testify in court and lack of scientific evidence to prove as some of the challenges that the police had encountered in prosecuting such cases.

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