Stop discriminating against intersex persons, urges nominated MP Mwaura

Nominated Member of Parliament Isaac Mwaura has called on the government to expedite the process of making necessary amendments to existing laws to facilitate legal recognition of intersex persons in the country.

Speaking during the international Intersex Awareness Day on Wednesday, Mr Mwaura urged the National Assembly to amend laws that discriminate against the intersex in order to give the community equal rights as other people.

“We are calling on the executive to play its role because the Judiciary has pronounced itself on this matter. It is in the executive where the problem is. They should recognize that there is a third gender called intersex and that is the reality. These are people with ambiguous genitalia. It is therefore imperative to have laws that recognize their existence,” said Mr Mwaura.

The chairman of Special Interest Groups Committee said he has presented a petition to Parliament seeking to amend legislation that does not recognize the existence of intersex persons.

“I have already presented a petition to Parliament. We will draft legislation, an intersex persons bill, which then will address all the rights and privileges of intersex persons in this country,” he said.

He also called for an end to discrimination against intersex people, starting with the Department of Registration of Persons taking immediate administrative action to provide a box where an intersex person can tick just like others who are either male or female.

“Everybody has a right to be treated equally, a right to a name, to education. Nobody should be left aside because of being born different. I know what it is to be born different because I was born with albinism.

“These are stories that people would want to imagine only happen in movies but they are actually real issues in this country.

"These are not people who want to transform their bodies from male to female, these are people who were born like that. They never chose to be born that way,” the nominated MP added.

For her part, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights Commission Secretary Patricia Nyaundi urged that a law against sexual discrimination be enacted to stop limiting intersex persons and guarantee them their rights to dignity and recognition.

“The existing laws limit us to recognizing people as either being male or female yet it is apparent you can be male, female or other. We want to put into our laws the recognition of the other,” said Nyaundi.

Intersex is a complex biological form where children are born with either two sex organs or one visible organ while the other is hidden, malformed or deformed but present.

Statistics from the Child Rights International Network conservatively estimates that there are over 20,000 intersex people in Kenya.