A woman has moved to court to sue the Attorney General Paul Kihara for herself and her husband to have conjugal right because she deserves to have her sexual needs met by her husband who has been locked up.
The woman who has been identified only as Ogembo argues that she shouldn’t be denied the right of procreation with her husband Erastus Odhiambo by the government simply because he is behind the bars.
The petition that she filed in court seeks to allow her offer conjugal rights to her incarcerated husband who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for murder.
Ogembo’s husband, Erastus Odhiambo was arrested in 2018 for the murder of Linda Wanjiku. Erastus shot and killed her second wife lawyer Linda Wanjiku, who was a mother of one in Buru Buru in Nairobi.
Ogembo mentioned –through her lawyer—that she intends to procreate more children with her husband, and she shouldn’t be barred from getting intimate with her husband who will be behind bars for 20 years.
She wants her husband to sire her children despite being held in a correctional facility now.
Ogembo similarly added that the decision not to set aside quarters for conjugal visits at the correctional facility holding her husband is going against her rights as a woman.
“The first petitioner has read and understood the content and substance in the Persons Deprived of Liberty Act 2014 and strongly believes that she is entitled to conjugal visits since her spouse retains all the rights under article 51 of the constitution.
Failure by the respondent to accord, provide facilities to enable the first petitioner access such visits elucidated above amounts to a violation of her most basic need as a woman,” Ogembo’s lawyer said.
The Marriage Act of the Constitution at the moment is not very much clear on prisoners’ rights on the matter of the receiving conjugal visits. At the moment it’s still vague.
Owing to the fact that the government has failed to provide conjugal rights facilities for prisoners and a way forward on how convicted felons can take care of their children while incarcerated, Ogembo is now insisting for her husband to be issued with a non-custodial sentence.
If Ogendo succeeds on her quest of having her husband’s conjugal rights approved, it will set a precedence on prisoners’ rights to receive conjugal visits from their spouses.
