Three activists have taken the government to court for denying prisoners conjugal rights. Their argument? Locking people up shouldn’t mean locking them out of their marriages.
John Wangai, Peter Agoro, and Anthony Murimi claim the policy is breaking families, causing emotional distress, and, according to them, increasing homosexuality in prisons.
Their case, filed at the Milimani High Court, demands that the government recognize conjugal visits as a constitutional right under the protection of family life.
The activists argue that prisoners, just like everyone else, have a right to love and intimacy.
They say denying them this basic need is unfair, discriminatory, and damaging to their dignity.
They also blame the policy for failed marriages, infidelity, and strangely enough, the spread of HIV in prisons.
To fix this, they want the government to:
- Acknowledge conjugal visits as a right.
- Create a policy allowing them within a year.
- Start a pilot program in select prisons as soon as possible.
But the government is not exactly eager to turn prisons into honeymoon suites. In 2023, a top official dismissed the idea, saying inmates should focus on their children instead of their love lives. There were also concerns about pregnancies and the challenge of raising babies in prison.
Now, the court has to decide: Should prisoners be allowed to keep the spark alive, or should their love lives remain behind bars?
By Vivian K.