A group of six teachers were arrested and suspended in Kenya on Thursday after a video of primary school students being forced to simulate sex as punishment sparked outrage.
In a 29-second video that has gone viral, four boys in school uniforms simulate sexual acts under a tree in the schoolyard as teachers look on. In the background, the six teachers can be heard chatting and laughing as a shirtless boy wipes tears from his face.
Police said the video “exposing students to indecent acts” was recorded in Nyamache, a rural town some 300 kilometers west of the capital, Nairobi.
Six teachers, five women and one man, have been arrested and are “assisting in the investigation”, police said in a report seen by AFP. They will be prosecuted for the appropriate charges, she added.
The Teaching Services Commission (TSC) suspended the six, saying the video had caused the six students “shame, trauma, mental and psychological torture.”
“You ordered and/or coerced students… to engage in indecent/inappropriate acts depicting homosexuality within the school,” TSC official Evaleen Mitei said in a letter to teachers.
Teachers have three weeks to present their written defense against their suspension, Ms. Mitei said.
At the same time, they are expected to be detained for another seven days while the investigation is completed.
The incident caused a stir on social media in the largely conservative country.
Education Minister Ezekiel Machogu said disciplinary proceedings would be launched against the teachers and they would be fired if found guilty.
Under the Kenyan Sexual Offenses Act, a person convicted of forcing another to engage in an indecent act is subject to a prison sentence of at least five years.
Beyond this incident, the living conditions of schoolchildren in Kenya are regularly the subject of heated debate, be it over the appropriateness of corporal punishment, officially banned by law in 2001, or more recently over the length of the school day.
