Kenya’s Sexual Offences Act was passed in 2006, when smartphones were not yet in most Kenyan pockets, and generative AI did not exist. Twenty years on, the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2026 proposes to bring the Act up to date with how technology is increasingly used to facilitate sexual and gender-based violence: through a phone, an account, a group chat, or even an image that was never real.
The National Council on the Administration of Justice adopted the draft at its 38th meeting in July 2026 for submission to the National Assembly. It is now before the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee. What the bill does and why it matters:
What do we need to know about this amendment?
It changes the legal framework. The Bill rewrites the definitions section of the principal Act to add “intimate image”, “private act”, “reasonable expectation of privacy”, “visual recording”, “voyeurism”, “sextortion”, “grooming” and “share”. It also imports “computer system”, “data controller” and “telecommunication system” from the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act and the Data Protection Act. These definitions provide the legal foundation for recognizing and prosecuting conduct that occurs through digital technologies.
“Sexual activity” is redefined to include online conduct. The new definition expressly covers the sharing of sexual images through digital means, sexually explicit conversations and virtual sexual acts. The revised definition would expressly recognise forms of sexual conduct that occur online, including the sharing of sexual images through digital means, sexually explicit conversations and virtual sexual acts. This could provide greater clarity when investigating and prosecuting conduct that occurs entirely online.
It introduces serious penalties. The severity of these penalties also makes it important that the offences are clearly and precisely defined, that safeguards against arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement are in place, and that due process and fair trial rights are fully protected. Creating or sharing an AI-altered intimate image carries a minimum of ten years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to KSh 2 million. Sextortion carries a minimum of ten years, rising to fifteen where a threat is made or acted on, and twenty years where it is aggravated, for example where the offender is a judicial officer, police officer, healthcare professional, employer or educator, or where there are two or more victims. Convicted persons are barred from public office for at least ten years and must compensate the survivor. At the same time, any takedown regime must include clear procedures, safeguards against arbitrary removal of lawful expression, and accessible avenues for review.
It builds an institutional layer. It also proposes a broader institutional response such as Safe shelters gazetted by the Cabinet Secretary for gender, gender justice courts designated by the Chief Justice, mandatory gender desks, sexual and gender-based violence education across the curriculum from ECD to university, psychosocial support for survivors, rehabilitation and post-release supervision of offenders, and employment screening against the sexual offenders register. These measures could strengthen prevention, survivor support and accountability, but their effectiveness will depend on adequate resourcing, implementation, oversight and respect for the rights of both survivors and accused persons.
For survivors of technology-facilitated gender-based violence, Kenya’s existing legal framework has often provided an incomplete and fragmented route to justice. Some forms of abuse may be addressed under the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, the Data Protection Act or other legislation, but these laws were not necessarily designed to address the full range of technology-facilitated sexual and gender-based violence.. A manipulated intimate image of a person who had never taken such an image could fall into significant gaps in the existing legal framework.
Our research also highlights that the challenge is not only the legal gap. Previous research cited in our report found that provisions of the Cybercrimes Act addressing image-based abuse and online harassment have been poorly implemented. Survivors face barriers to justice, while low reporting is linked in part to a lack of trust in the police and the wider justice system.
What these proposed changes could mean for young activists
In November 2025, Amnesty International published “This fear, everyone is feeling it”: Tech-facilitated violence against young activists in Kenya, drawn from interviews and focus groups with 31 young human rights defenders aged 18 to 28 who took part in the 2024 and 2025 protests.
Young women in that research described the exact conduct this Bill now proposes to criminalize.
Mary*, a 22-year-old defender in Nairobi, described the pattern plainly: a woman posts something critical, and the next morning she finds her face placed on a naked body. Under the proposed section 30A, the person who made that image would face a minimum of ten years, whether or not they had shared it. Under section 30B, the platform hosting it would have 48 hours to take it down once notified.
Participants in our Kisumu focus group told us they had become afraid to be photographed in swimwear in public, in case the images were posted to shame them. The proposed voyeurism offence, together with the definitions of “private act” and “reasonable expectation of privacy” could provide a legal framework for addressing some of the conduct that underlies those fears.
Sarah*, of Feminists in Kenya, told us she had been harassed, doxed and threatened, and described it as an attack on activists’ voices and their bodies. She also told us she reported violence to the police and nothing happened. An activist in Kisumu recounted going to report body-shaming and being told by the officer that the abuser had simply told the truth. Section 45A would make that officer’s response an offence. Section 45C would require the station to have a trained gender desk in the first place.
Mariam*, a 27-year-old defender in Mombasa who was forcibly disappeared for two nights, received messages naming her child’s school, class and school bus number plate. The proposed stalking offence, which expressly covers monitoring and tracking by electronic means and repeated threatening communication, would give conduct like that a charge.
Emily*, who volunteers at a feminist centre in one of Nairobi’s informal settlements, told us that tech-facilitated gender-based violence is still widely treated as less serious than physical violence, and that the link between the two is poorly understood. This Bill recognises more clearly than Kenya’s existing sexual offences framework that technology-facilitated and offline forms of gender-based violence can be interconnected, and that online abuse can have serious consequences for people’s safety, dignity, equality and participation in public life..
Names marked with an asterisk are pseudonyms used in the original research to protect participants.