DECEMBER 2011
Identity Gay, Straight or on The Rocks
Gasp, We Are All Sex Workers A Case For Legalizing Sex Work In Kenya Few historians dispute that sex work is as old as slavery and or human trafficking. Few scholars however, employ their legal wit to establish nexus between the present social prejudices and marginal perspectives to sex work with its historical development and legal relation to other forms of exploitation such as slavery and or human trafficking. This is illustrated further by the 1949 Convention on the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others which states that "prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person’’ requiring all signing parties to punish pimps and brothel owners and operators and to abolish all special treatment or registration of prostitutes. This legal UN status is reflected in Kenyan laws in section 153 to 156 of the penal code which does not punish sex work per se but simply punishes soliciting, pimps, brothel owners and operator. It must be noted at this point that the criminalization of sex work in Kenya is arguably unconstitutional. It curtails the exercise of the freedom of expression by criminalizing a consensual adult act that does not breach peace, harm the neighbor or threaten national security. The criminalization traverses the enjoyment of the right to privacy by blurring the line between public and private consensual adult conduct and inherently flies loathe of the right to dignity by subjecting sex workers to live with an imminent fear of arrest which condition is degrading and inhuman. Continued on Page 12, 13; Related Story, Back Page
Kenyan Lesbian Author Premiers Lesbian Novel Kerry Belchambers, a Kenyan lesbian has authored a fictional novel titled Cresswell Falls. The novel revolves around the lives of two women who are attracted to one another.
Kenya.’ In addition, ‘She is also the first author in Kenya who identifies as lesbian and the first Kenyan to have her book published by Blue Feather Books Ltd.’
According to Gay Kenya, Kerry is ‘the first author to write a book about the love and life of a same sex couple published in
Blue Feathers Books describes Kerry as ’A Kenyan native who writes because she loves to. She's an event planner. she
enjoys reading, cooking, photography, roller-skating, and watching movies.’ Cresswell Falls details the lives of two women; one with an adulterous husband, the other a non-believer in love. Its available in Amazon, Bellabooks and Blue Feathers Books.— IDENTITY