By Fatiha Shabir
Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i plans to ban those serving in the National Police Service from dating and marrying each other. According to him, this will reduce the number of cases of sexual harassment and gender-based violence within the police service.
Speaking on Friday at the Kenya Police Training College in Kiganjo, Nyeri, CS Matiang’i urged the ministry to implement rules banning police officers from having intimate relations with colleagues.
“We will adopt a system similar to that of the Kenya Defense Forces which bars the soldiers from getting into intimate relationships with their colleagues,” said CS Matiang’i.
The new regulations are set to be introduced in July this year after the proposal has been submitted to the National Security Council for approval.
Following the implementation of this system, it will be illegal for a police officer to date or get married to another officer and if found one has to leave the Service.
The CS also warned high-ranking police officers against sexually harassing their juniors, lest they be stripped of titles and sacked.
“We won’t talk much moving forward, we will act,” he emphasized.
The CS however said that officers who are already married to their colleagues won’t be affected by the new directive.
Kenyans are left questioning whether the soon to be ban is lawful and how it will prevent two adults from falling in love.
Matiang’i’s remarks come almost three weeks after a bodyguard attached to his office and his wife who was a traffic officer, died in a murder suicide.
General Service Unit officer Hudson Wakise shot and killed his wife Pauline Wakasa before turning the gun to himself.
Wakasa was given a full ceremonial send-off, but Wakise was buried without police presence.
Last week, ODM leader Raila Odinga expressed sorrow over the increasing cases of spouses killing one another in domestic fights.
Raila, who called for an urgent national discussion on gender-based violence, said the “abnormality of the murders cannot become the normal.”