Nairobi, March 10. The Kenyan Minister of Education, Ezekiel Machogu, has announced the creation of chaplaincies in educational centers across the country to prevent the “infiltration” of the LGBTIQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) collective.
“We cannot ask for these cases to seep into our schools,” Machogu told the Senate on Thursday, according to local media last night.
Furthermore, Machogu reported on the establishment of a committee between the Ministry of Education and the Anglican Church of Kenya led by Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit, who is also responsible for chaplaincies.
“We will bring chaplains to all schools to offer advice and guidance,” the minister added.
Machogu believes that this measure will help protect teachers and students from “practices” that could erode “cultural values”.
Already on March 2, the Kenyan President, William Ruto, asked “all religious leaders in the country to stand firm and educate our children and Kenyans so that we do not lose our customs, our Christian and Islamic religious beliefs before platforms that preach foreign concepts”. “.
He also assured that he would not allow same-sex marriage because this union goes against the culture and tradition of his country.
Kenya’s penal code, where the LGBTIQ community often faces a lot of stigma and persecution, criminalizes same-sex relationships with up to fourteen years in prison.
In neighboring Uganda, a representative of this country also proposed a bill on Thursday punishing “homosexuality” with a maximum of ten years in prison and five years in prison for those who try to “promote it”.
The bill proposes ten years in prison for anyone who identifies as “lesbian, gay, transgender, queer or any other sexual or gender identity contrary to the binary categories of men and women”, as it read in the Parliament MP Asuman Basalirwa, from the minority opposition party Justice Forum (JEEMA).
In addition, it also seeks to punish the “promotion of homosexuality” up to five years in prison.
Of the nearly 70 countries that criminalize same-sex relations worldwide, 33 are in Africa, where most such laws are inherited from colonial times. EFE
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