Atheists have asked the Nairobi county government to construct brothels instead of passing laws to ban prostitution.
Chairman Harrison
Mumia, in a letter to the council of governors chairman Josphat Nanok and copied to the AG, said they will protest if MCAs don't withdraw their motion prohibiting commercial sex work in the city.
He issued a 14- day ultimatum saying the the
passing of the law is unconstitutional,illegal, untenable, and retrogressive.
The county assembly on Friday passed a motion prohibiting commercial sex work in Nairobi.
The motion was moved by Woodley Kenyatta Golf Course MCA Mwangi Njihia.
He argued that sex trade in the capital has become an open air business without consequences and therefore, the city needs nip the vice in the bud.
"Instead
of banning prostitution the county should pass enabling legislation
to facilitate running of brothels," Mumia said in the December 2 letter.
"This will enable the
government to exercise more control over the sex industry. Prostitutes
have rights just like any other worker in Kenya and should not be judged unfairly."
He said prostitution is a service industry like any other in which people exchange skills for money or other reward.
"No person should be violated on the basis of the trade occupation
work calling or profession," the Atheists leader said.
"It should
not be lost on the county that no law has ever succeeded
in stopping prostitution anywhere. Sex worker is not going to disappear
any time soon," he said.
The penal code criminalises aspects of prostitution stating that every male person who
knowingly lives wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution or in any public place persistently solicits or importunes for immoral purposes, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
It adds that: "Every woman who knowingly lives wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution, or who is proved to have, for the purpose of gain, exercised control, direction or influence over the movements of a prostitute in such a manner as to show that she is aiding, abetting or compelling her prostitution with any person, or generally, is guilty of a felony."
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