CS Matiang'i Breathes Fire over Proposal to Lower Sex Consent Age to 16

Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has broken his silence on the debate about lowering the age for sex consent from 18 to 16 years.

Speaking during a prize-giving ceremony at Pangani Girls High School in Nairobi, Matiang'i said the government will not entertain any attempts to lower the sex consent age.

“I want to assure you we can never be mad enough to support such nonsense regarding the consent age….There is some madness that people engage in that is so difficult to understand,” said Matiang'i.

“How on earth? Ni kazi umekosa? How can we be debating about endangering the lives of our children,” he added.

In March, three Court of Appeal judges proposed an amendment to the Sexual Offences Act to have the age of sex consent set at 16.

Justices Daniel Musinga, Roselyn Nambuye, and Patrick Kiage argued that many other jurisdictions only criminalize sexual conduct with children of below 16 years.

The judges made the proposal after overturning a ruling where a Kenyan man was sentenced to 15 years for impregnating a 15-year-old girl, five years into his jail term and ordered his release.

They referenced their ruling to the reasoning applied when the House of Lords in the United Kingdom heard the case of a woman against a doctor who offered contraceptives to five 15-year-old girls without their parents' consent.