There have been at least six incidents of mob violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Kenya since 2008, Human Rights Watch and fellow rights organisation Pema Kenya revealed recently. The local police failed to investigate any of them.

Sadly, this is unsurprising. It is the foreseeable and tragic consequence of laws that criminalise people on the basis of their sexuality and gender identity.

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In Kenya, consenting adults can face up to 14 years in prison for having same-sex relations. They can be imprisoned for up to seven years for merely attempting to have such sexual relations, and up to five years for committing “gross indecency” – a vague offence that is frequently levelled at LGBT people. Men who are suspected of being gay can be forced to undergo invasive anal testing in the erroneous belief that the procedure can determine their sexual orientation. These statutes brand LGBT people as undeserving of empathy, dignity or the protection of the law.

Predictably, the stigma caused by such regulations leads to incidents of harassment, discrimination and mob violence against LGBT people, dividing communities and families, and undermining the rule of law. These attackers consider themselves vigilantes with a duty to uphold laws that criminalise same-sex relationships.

The state’s apathy – and often open hostility – towards LGBT people merely encourages the aggressors, who know they will face no adverse consequences if their victim does not appear to be straight. Criminalisation provides a licence for the perpetration of horrific crimes - even murder- against a vulnerable group.

Francis Wanjohi, a coast regional police commander, recently told the Thomson Reuters Foundation: “Police are meant to protect everybody, and that is what we do. When we receive any report, we must investigate. That is our job … But again, you do not expect to be protected when you engage in criminal and unacceptable behaviour.”

The message to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is clear: they should not expect the basic protection of the state. When your sexuality – your very identity – is a criminal offence, you live as a felon who has not been caught, and you cannot trust even the police in your community to protect you from appalling violence.

In Kenya, LGBT people are marginalised and cannot participate freely in society. The recent World Bank Sogi report on India and the Williams Institute report both demonstrate the economic value of diversity and the damage to GDP as a result of homophobia and criminalisation. Although it benefits all of us to prioritise inclusivity, LGBT people cannot freely participate in society when exposure may cost them their lives.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A protester on a march in Nairobi. Photograph: Africa Media Online/Alamy

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration claims to be proud of its open and outward-looking democracy, yet its version of democracy systematically excludes people on the totally arbitrary basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.



At the UN general assembly last month, the president reiterated Kenya’s commitment to the sustainable development goals, and in particular to the eradication of gender-based violence. It is inconsistent for him to acknowledge at the UN that “we cannot reach our development goals without addressing human rights and complex humanitarian issues at the same time” when, during President Obama’s state visit, he dismissed LGBT rights as “a non-issue”.

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Criminalisation justifies treating LGBT people differently and thus makes equality before the law unattainable. It is reminiscent of the laws that once denied women the right to vote – of the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, the racially segregationist policies of apartheid South Africa, pre-civil rights America – because it treats one category of people as lesser citizens, lesser people.

As Obama said on his recent visit to Kenya: “As an African-American in the US, I am painfully aware of the history of what happens when people are treated differently, under the law.”

We must condemn these laws with the same outrage as we would any that differentiated between people on the basis of their sex, religion or colour of their skin. It is a terrible fact that in 2015, LGBT people live as second-class citizens in 78 jurisdictions worldwide, because of the scourge of criminalisation.

This latest news from Kenya is a direct consequence of laws that deem LGBT people to be “other”, denying them their fundamental dignity and human rights.

• Jonathan Cooper is chief executive of Human Dignity Trust