Gang rape attracts not less than fifteen years but which may be enhanced to imprisonment for life.
Image: COURTESY
The Sexual Offences Act, enacted in 2006, was proposed by then nominated MP Njoki Ndungu - now a Supreme Court judge.
It sets out stiffer penalties for those convicted of engaging in sexual activity with children below the age of 18.
The law states that a person commits rape when he or she intentionally and unlawfully commits an act which causes penetration with his or her genital organs, when the other party does not consent to the penetration and if the consent to penetrate to the genital organs is obtained by force or by means of threats or intimidation.
A person guilty of rape is liable to not less than 10 years imprisonment but which may be enhanced to life imprisonment.
Gang rape according to the sexual act, is committing the rape offence with another person or persons.
Gang rape attracts not less than 15 years but which may be enhanced to life imprisonment as well.
Defilement occurs when a person commits an act which causes penetration with a child. A person found guilty of defiling a child aged 11 years or less gets life imprisonment.
A person found guilty of defiling a child aged between 12 and 15 is sentenced to not less than 20 years.
A person found guilty of defiling a minor aged 16 or 18 years is liable an imprisonment term not less than 15 years.
Image: COURTESY
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Nairobi-based criminal lawyer John-Lewis Onkendi of Onkendi Ombiro Advocates in a phone call interview with the Star said sexual offences tend to favour the complainant.
"When the complainant lodges a complaint, the accused is tasked with the burden to proof which is unlike other crimes that the one who alleges has to prove," Ombiro said.
An advocate who did not want to be named called for decriminalisation of sex among teenagers, saying children were behaving badly as opposed to committing an offence.
"If it is among adolescents, with an age difference of maybe two years, such cases should not find their way to courts. We should handle them as children. I look at it as children behaving badly. In such cases, there is no consent,” the lawyer said.
Another lawyer criticised the law for denying the child defilement victim a voice to express themselves in court on whether they could have participated in the sexual activity with their lovers willingly and that they were not offended.
"That means courts must close their eyes and ears on the possibility that those considered children in the Act could be deprived of the right of choice."
In February, Isiolo Woman Representative Rehema Jaldesa proposed severe punishment to offenders found guilty. She proposed castration to act as a deterrence.
“It makes no sense to hand a rapist a 10-year sentence when he has already messed up the entire life of an innocent woman or girl,” Jaldesa said.
edited by peter obuya