Allow us to make love, prisoners ask govt

Imagine a woman waking up at Kamiti Maximum Prison or a man at Langata Women for visitation.

Just like in the movies, the prison warder calls out the ‘host’ to a secluded room, granting the couple private time to reconnect in a moment of intimacy.

Well, this sums up a case filed by three men before the High Court on Wednesday.

John Wangai, Peter Agoro and Anthony Murimi moved to the High Court under urgency, arguing that men and women behind bars are living an undignified life as they were denied an essential human need.

The trio sued the Ministry of Interior, Kenya Prisons Service, and the Attorney General. They also named the National Treasury, National Assembly, Kenya National Human Rights, Kituo Cha Sheria and Law Society of Kenya (LSK) as interested parties.

 “The right to family life includes the right to maintain intimate relationships, which is integral to preserving the integrity of the family unit. The denial of conjugal rights to Kenya prisoners by the 1st and 2nd respondents, which is a fundamental aspect of the right to family life, is a violation of the Constitution, international human rights law, and customary law that acknowledges the importance of conjugal rights in family life,” the group led by Wangai argued.

According to Wangai, making love is crucial to maintaining the dignity and integrity of family life.

He said that it was unclear why prisoners were being denied conjugal visitations despite there being no explicit law prohibiting the same.

“The unconstitutional and illegal denial of conjugal rights to prisoners by the first and second respondents (Interior Ministry and Prisons) has led to severe emotional and psychological consequences on both the prisoners and their family members,” he argued.

Wangai, who told the court that he is a spirited Kenyan defending prisoners, argued that Kenya is a signatory and party to treaties dictating that prisoners should not be deprived of the opportunity to maintain conjugal relationships.

According to him, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners provide for using long periods of deprivation as a punishment.

He said that allowing the opposite sex to visit regularly would help the government deal with homosexuality and lesbianism in prisons.

Wangai, in his affidavit, asserted that the National Aids Control Council, UNAids and World designated prisoners as the most at-risk population and also reported that inmates accounted for 15 per cent of new HIV infections in Kenya.

According to him, data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) indicated that the total number of persons committed to prison increased from 160,121 in 2021 to 169,579 in 2022.

“Allowing conjugal visits in secluded areas of prisons would help arrest the runaway HIV/Aids high prevalence in prisons,” he said.

The man further argued that the move also denies young men and women who are imprisoned for life and who had not married an opportunity to have families and children to continue their lineage.

Collapse of marriages

He said partners of those who are married but imprisoned end up leaving or philandering as they try to quench their passion.

“The majority of prisoners are in their reproductive years and are deprived of the right to maintain familial relationships, including access to conjugal rights. Prisoners’ marriages which is a holy union end up collapsing as partners leave the marriage due to sexual starvation leading to high cases of infidelity,” argued Wangai.

The court heard that several countries, such as the United States of America, Russia, Spain, France, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Brazil, and Canada, structured and supervised conjugal visitation programs.

Wangai said that in the United States of America, States such as California, Connecticut, Mississippi, New York, and Washington allow extended family visitation programs, which permit private visits with spouses.

He added that Canada allows Private Family Visits (PFV) for eligible inmates in line with the Corrections and Conditional Release Act of 1992, which recognizes the importance of family and social relationships in rehabilitation.

On the other hand, he said that South Africa allows conjugal visits on a case-by-case basis, particularly for long-term inmates.