Lead image for From online abuse to ‘sex for marks’: Kenya moves to criminalise deepfake sexual violence and sextortion.
Twenty years after Kenya enacted the Sexual Offences Act, the country is seeking to update the law to confront forms of abuse that were barely imagined when the legislation came into force.
From sexually explicit deepfakes and cyberstalking to sextortion and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, technology has created new avenues for sexual exploitation and exposed gaps in laws.
Now, a proposed review of the Sexual Offences Act (2006) seeks to bring those emerging offences into the law, strengthen protection for survivors and make institutions more accountable.
Read: In age of AI, women battle rise of deepfake porn
The proposals were developed by the National Council on the Administration of Justice Standing Committee on the Review of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Laws.
Christine Kungu, chairperson of the Federation of Women Lawyers-Kenya (Fida-Kenya), chairs the committee and said the review was informed by changes in society and the growing use of technology to perpetrate abuse. “The objective is to make sure that contemporary issues have been covered,” she said.
She noted that when the current law was enacted, the digital offences now confronting the country had not emerged in their current form. The proposed changes, however, must still go through Parliament, which will facilitate public participation, before they can become law.