The Kilifi County government has been forced to relook into the Kilifi County Sexual Reproductive Health law that came into force in 2016.
Mr Omar Mwamuye who is the project officer of Rising Youth Initiative said that the County legal department and the Kilifi County Assembly failed to consider crucial issues when passing the law such as the needs of pregnant mothers and adolescents.
He added that stakeholders moved to court to prevent the county administration from implementing the law forcing a new county government to call for consensus meetings to iron out the thorny issues.
“The law was passed by the County assembly in 2016 but as stakeholders, we realized sexual reproductive health rights on adolescents and pregnant mothers had not been captured fully and hence we moved to court to stop its implementation,” he said.
He cited issues such as rights to abortion as some of the areas that were disregarded by the formulators of the law.
“We saw fault in the law because there was no consideration on abortions and some other elements which were critical in sexual reproductive health,” he added.
The Kilifi County Executive Committee Member (CECM) for Health Charles Dadu said that as a department they came to realize that the law was passed without factoring in critical issues touching on the Kilifi situation.
“This is not a national government legislation but a Kilifi county government legislation and every county has its own issues and that is the reason we are discussing the law so that it conforms to the needs of residents,” he said.
He added that the County has been holding stakeholder meetings and engaging the public in collecting views that can make the law appeal locally.
“When we discovered that there was discomfort with the legislation we immediately started collecting views and presenting them to our legal department for consideration. The legal department has done a good job and we hope we shall have a good law,” he said.
