Legislators have passed the Sexual Offences Bill, 2019, criminalizing multiple sexual practices that are absent from the existing law.

The bill, was moved to the house by Hon Monicah Amoding the Kumi Municipality Member of parliament. Amoding has described this bill as a gift to Women and the country at large.

“I am short of words and just excited; this bill is a gift to the women’s movement and the country as we wind up this Parliament. When we started the 10th Parliament, Women MPs put out four bills and three have been passed,” Amoding said.

The new bill criminalizes sexual offenses like indecent utterances, gestures, and touches to the sexual organs of another person which wasn’t provided for in previous law.

Clause 2 of the Bill on rape provides that a person who performs a sexual act with another person-without that other person’s consent; or incapable of consenting to the sexual act commits an offence and is liable on conviction, to imprisonment for life.

Under the passed bill , it is aggravated rape when the sexual offender is suffering from AIDS; when the victim suffers disability; when the act was committed by two or more persons, when the offender is a person in authority and when the victim is of advanced age.

Clause 8 states that, a person who unlawfully detains another person with the intention of performing a sexual act commits an offence and is liable on conviction, to imprisonment not exceeding seven years.

The bill also creates offence for a person who transmits, transfers, sends, forwards, directs material of a sexual nature to another person without the consent of that other person.

Penal Code Act, Cap. 120 provides for a number of sexual offences, although some provisions do not reflect the evolving trends in social attitudes, values and practices.