Morara Kebaso under fire over contentious comments on defilement

Political activist Morara Kebaso has come under fire from a section of Kenyans on X after making statements deemed sexually insensitive.

The debate began after a video was shared of Morara engaging in a chit-chat with a group of youth who had camped at his office soon after his release by a Nairobi court where he was charged with a cyber crime.

While sharing his arrest ordeal, and the behind-the-bars occurrences, Morara also narrated a particular incident between him and a Kenyan remandee who had been arrested for defilement.

As the group of youth, mostly men, listened carefully, Morara told them: "I found someone with a defilement case. I told him he has a much bigger case. But for him to find help, I requested him to ask his family to speak to the family of the girl. Because the courts cannot help you..."

Soon as his words of advice to the defilement suspect ricochetted off the X platform, tens of Kenyans started expressing their dismay at Morara's thinking when it came to a case as heavy as defilement.

To many, Morara was wrong to trivialise the matter and suggest a meeting between the parents of the suspect and the victim - many angry at him for appearing to cut down the criminal act to a mere meeting of opposing families.

‘Usikimywe’ founder Njeri Migwi, who has for years championed the rights of sexual abuse victims, was first to share her disappointment. 

She tweeted: "@MoraraKebasoSnr. We DO NOT solve defilement of children by mediation btw parents and perpetrators. We jail defilers and rapists." 

"Defilement is rape of minors. Every defiler is a pedophile and a rapist. The children of Kenya deserve leaders that protect their safety, welfare & development.

"This is in response to what you told the defiler while arrested. Waiting to hear a retraction and a proper statement on the same."

While a chunk of X users agreed with Njeri, Morara still doubled down on his sentiments, insisting that the Sexual Offences Act needed a review as it appeared to be harsher on the boy involved than the girl.

He wrote: "The Sexual Offences Act needs a review to protect from misuse. There have been court decisions in this dire. In this instance two teenagers one of 17 years and another of 15 years were caught experimenting their biology. Only the boy was arrested and is being charged with defilement."

"In other cases that I have seen, you find an underage girl behaving like an adult. Most of the freshas in campus are 17 yet 90% of them are already having sex. So this needs a review for sure."

While sharing data he said was from Kiambu prison, Morara went on to say that there was a need for a reform or a large-scale civic sensitization on the matter. 

"If you go to Kiambu prison, 60% of the remandees are there on the basis of sexual offences. All of them are men. So we either review the law or do civic education," he concluded.

While acknowledging that he may be having a valid point to put across, yet more Kenyans still faulted Morara for suggesting that, just because an underage woman was acting 'like an adult' then she was fair game and the man did not necessarily deserve punishment since the woman, already, was 'behaving like an adult'.

Someone told him, "What do you mean underage behaving like an adult? How, exactly, should a 17 year old girl behave? How do adults behave? So, because she behaved like an adult she deserves to be defiled? What reasoning is this? You're simply empowering men to conquer children with that flimsy excuse!"

On her part, Christine Waigwe said: "It's simple things like the fact that the girl has big hips or large breasts and people will just adultify a kid out of nowhere based on just biological changes during adolescence, things she has no control over!"

Morara, however, had a few women in his corner including popular female barber Mwende Frey who tweeted: "Morara has talked about underage boys and girls...no where in that tweet has he talked about adult men and underage girls...cos truth is most times, when teenagers are caught in the act, only the boy gets reprimanded. It should be both of them!"

The civic educator's argument, also, appears to be something former Chief Justice David Maraga and even the current CJ Martha Koome have both touched on before.

In April 2023, Justice Martha Koome warned Lamu residents against resolving defilement cases at home. She also asked the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Centre, to stay away from all criminal cases and instead focus on minor cases involving simple family disputes, land and succession.

“There is a limit to what the ADR can do. They can deal with mild cases of family disputes, land, succession and conflicts between herders and farmers," the CJ said.

"Any case that has to do with defilement, rape, attempted murder, robbery with violence and other serious offences belong to the courts for resolution."

Back in 2019, while addressing the same region, then CJ Maraga also touched on the subject.

He said: "Issues to do with property inheritance among other related matters should be resolved at home. But I wish to however make it clear that child defilement cases are never to be addressed or resolved at home but in a court of law. We need such culprits jailed."