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Kenya’s Gay community celebrated the promulgation of the New Constitution and applauded President Mwai Kibaki for signing it into law to take effect henceforth. After the promulgation of the new law, the gay community converged in a leafy suburb of Nairobi to launch independent condom and water based lubrication distribution system for the Men having Sex with other Men (MSM) Program, dubbed Safe Sex Express Theme.
They also organized a get together party under this theme in Nairobi capital.
Kenya’s new Constitution states that the state shall not directly or indirectly discriminate against the minorities and marginalised groups.
President Kibaki promulgated the New Constitution on the 27 August at Kenya’s historical Uhuru Park in Nairobi, in a state function witnessed by more than five presidents and leaders of governments from Africa and across the world.
The Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK) said the new constitution has a better Bill of Rights to protect and champion rights the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community.
GALCK’s manager, David Kuria said the LGBTI community in Kenya is extremely happy about the new law because it gives voice and protects the community’s rights in chapter four of the constitution.
“The chapter also talks about how these rights should be enforced during the implementation of the new constitution.This is good news for us in Kenya and we are proud. We were part and parcel of the constitution process as we gave our views and voted overwhelmingly for the document in the referendum earlier this month”, Kuria explained.
The National Commission for Human Rights and Equality has also been entrenched into Kenya’s new law to look into issues related to gender, equality and human rights and propose the necessary legislation to parliament.
The promulgation of Kenya’s new constitution coincided with Ishtar MSM’s event of distribution and Launch of Independent Condom and water based lubrication distribution system which saw more than 3000 condoms being distributed in Nairobi.
Ishtar MSM, deals with health related issues and HIV/AID mitigation programs among the gay community in Kenya.
Ishtar MSM, has got an HIV/AIDS testing and counselling kit for LGBTI members in Kenya. It gets support from Liverpool VCT Care and Treatnent (LVCT), Kenya Aids Vaccine Initiative (KAVI) and some times from other donor well wishers.
The GALCK’s programme officer , Solomon Wambua said they received some 36,000 safe condoms from donor partners and part of this will be taken to the neighbouring country Tanzania for distribution to the gay community .
“We are working with the Community peer support services in Tanzania, which deals with empowering of LGBTI people and we are partnering on campaigns for safe sex among gay community . We in Kenya we are glad that this event to empower MSM has coincided with the coming in effect of our New constitution which we hope to be implemented by the parliament to grant us full rights”, Wambua expressed confidence.
The event brought together more than 500 LGBTI members who also showcased their talent, singing in a night long gay party in Nairobi.
Kenya’s new constitution replaces the old one which was written by colonial master in Langester in England in the early 1960s and inherited by Kenya during its independence on December 12, 1963.
Article by: Ken Were (BTM Correspondent)
This entry was posted on Monday, August 30th, 2010 at 9:22 am and is filed under Breaking News, Kenya. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
