Taking Good Will for granted – What’s your Choice?

Kenya has one of the most vocal civil society in the region. I remember attending a meeting in South Africa chaired by a Zimbabwean....after a spirited engagement on different issues; the man could not help but express his frustration with only one word – Kenyans!

So it is quite to be understood that the government wants to limit the current civil society space – and those in the know say there is a two pronged strategy: accuse them of supporting terrorism or gay rights. Indeed one of the recommendations (number 7, I think it is) by a task force formed on the now contentious Public Benefits Organizations Act – PBO-A; says  “PBO Act be amended to prohibit registration of any public benefit organization that is involved in promotion of advocacy of indecent acts as provided in the penal code under section 162 – 165....or is involved in recruitment, training and incitement of persons to undertake terrorist activities.”

Perhaps as a consequence of this, the Attorney General has now appealed the judgment made in the case by Eric Gitari (Petition No. 440 of 2013); where he prayed and won to have NGLHRC’s registered while the Attorney General and the NGO council lost. 

In his appeal submissions the Attorney General says he’s doing it for public good – but one has to wonder – does he or anyone in State Law office really understand that term? 

We have an obligation to remind them what this term means – especially in it’s the application to health and health care. Now public health refers to the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through individual and community actions. Taking care of one’s own health may appear like a private issue, but the cumulative effect on the national economy resulting from the loss of production and income, is substantial. The exact mathematics of it is left to the health economists but it suffices here to say taking care of individual and community health is the REAL Public Good!

One area where gay people in Kenya have worked to advance public good is in the HIV and AIDS – prevention, treatment and care. This has been possible because this community has been able to organize and work together to address targeted needs! The State Law office is disregarding with negligence of criminal proportions the understanding of mechanics of communicable disease transmission. That:

The benefits of limiting transmission from high incidence communities to low incidence communities are greatest to those with low incidence! Globally, the so called “men who have sex with men” are 19 times more likely to be living with HIV than the general population. Studies in Kenya have confirmed this global trend. Thus while we could well explore the concepts of justice and equity in providing an enabling environment for health programming for gay people we must also emphasize that actually, the benefit for this is felt in greatest by non-gay people. Now that is REAL Public Good!

Following this appeal by the Government, we must evaluate our stance of working with the government in promoting REAL public good. We must withhold our cooperation with this government until they do the right thing. By withhold our cooperation with this government’s departments and agencies working in public health the government would of necessity force the intransigent state law office to understanding the real meaning of public good. 

I for one will consult widely with the Key Population’s constituency with a view to resigning from the Global Fund’s CCM.  It does not make sense to contribute to a Kenya that is so dismissive of basic human rights of a community we hold so dear. Our Foundation – KFSE also commits to not working in this ares.  If only a sizable number of us can make a commitment to join in this approach....