Kenya | Chief censor says foreign NGOs paying youth to be gay

The head of the Kenya Film Classification Board is claiming that young Kenyans are being paid up to $30,000 by foreign groups to “engage in homosexuality”.

Ezekial Mutua, the virulently homophobic CEO of the KFCB, made the absurd claim in an interview with The Nairobian.

“There are foreign NGOs in Kisumu and Kakamega [counties] which move to the villages to manipulate our poor innocent youth with ‘big money’ of up to Sh3 million (R375,000 / US$30,000) for them to engage in this wicked act,” Mutua said.

He continued: “We (KFCB) have asked the NGO Coordination Board to investigate the activities of some of the foreign NGOs in the country. If they do not stop, I will lead in picketing and demonstrations to make our message heard.”

Mutua fears that the country’s African values are under threat by this “kind of neo-colonialism”. He ranted that, “These mzungus who are bringing and sponsoring this practice in Kenya should know that we are entrenched in our African morals and principles that portray sexual decency. Our fore parents did not practice homosexuality.”

Mutua also warned that gay sex causes “mature men [to] end up in diapers because they have been ‘destroyed’ by their fellow men,” adding: “It is high time we stopped this Westernised and good-for-nothing practice.”

As the country’s chief censor, Mutua has been at the forefront of censoring LGBTQ-themed films and music videos, most recently banning the Kenyan film Rafiki, which has been invited to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

Mutua was ridiculed last year after he demanded that two male lions seen having sex in a national park get counselling for their “abnormal behaviour”. He also suggested that the lions may have ‘learned to be gay’ after possibly watching a gay human couple having sex in the park.

Mutua remains unrepentant in his bigotry and ignorance, telling the newspaper: “I am willing and ready to lose my job of heading the moral board in a country where homosexuality is the order of the day. It will destroy even the future generations, which should not be the case.”

Shamefully, South Africa’s Film and Publication Board (FPB) signed an agreement with Mutua in March 2016 “that fosters common approaches in online content regulation.” The FPB has refused to reveal the content of the agreement to Mambaonline or the Right2Know campaign.

Homosexuality is outlawed in Kenya, with penalties including five to 14 years in prison. There is, however, a legal challenge in the courts underway to repeal these sections of the Penal Code as unconstitutional.

Last month, President Uhuru Kenyatta told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the human rights of LGBTQ Kenyans is “a subject that is of no major importance to the people of the republic of Kenya.”