Homa Bay Woman Representative Gladys Wanga has condemned Malindi Member of Parliament Aisha Jumwa over proposal to arrest and jail pregnant teenage girls.
On Saturday, Jumwa said the ongoing war on pregnancies among school girls was skewed since it was only the boy child who got punished after impregnating a girl.
Speaking during the Annual Malindi Education day celebrations, the MP said if a school boy and a school girl willingly engage in sex, and the girl gets pregnant, they are both equally guilty of the offence, and the law should be applied on them equally.
“Both teenage boys and girls deserve equal punishment because they commit an offence of engaging in unlawful sexual behaviors. The law should be equally enforced, boys should not be victimised,” she said during a function in Barani Secondary School
However, Jumwa noted the only time the boy should be arrested and prosecuted alone is when he engages in the sexual act without the girl's consent.
Reacting to the sentiments, Wanga termed the remarks as "unthought and reckless", adding that imprisonment of teens won't solve the problem of underage pregnancies.
"Never seen a statement so unthought and reckless and worse still coming from a female leader and mother! We must find and deal with root causes of teenage pregnancies," Wanga tweeted on Saturday.
The debate comes at a time when Court of Appeal Judges have been calling for the lowering of consensual sex age from 18 to 16 years.
The court cited lengthy jail terms imposed on boys convicted of defilement, and thus need to change the Sexual Offences Act.
“Our prisons are teeming with young men serving lengthy sentences for having had sexual intercourse with adolescent girls whose consent has been held to be immaterial because they were under 18 years,” the judges ruled recently.