Inmate's wife moves to court to demand conjugal visits

A Nairobi woman has filed a case in court seeking to be allowed to visit her husband who is serving time in prison, for conjugal rights. Through her lawyer, the woman argued that even though her husband is serving a 20-year sentence in jail, he still retains all the rights under article 51 of the constitution and is thus entitled to his conjugal rights.

In her suit, the woman has argued that she is in her reproductive years and would love to have more children as well as have her conjugal rights met. She has thus accused the Attorney General of violating her needs as a woman by making it impossible for her to have conjugal visits.

In countries like Denmark and Belgium and even some states in the US, the law allows prisoners conjugal visits with the time for such visits ranging from a few hours to a few days. In Kenya, conjugal rights are protected in the Marriage Act. However, to date, no law has been made to allow conjugal visits for inmates despite numerous calls from prisoners and their spouses over the years.

In 2014, the then Prisons Commissioner General, Isaiah Osugo ruled out the possibility of such a law arguing that the country’s prisons did not have the necessary facilities and introducing such would be expensive.