Six teachers have been arrested in Kenya after a video emerged showing primary school students being forced to fake sex scenes as punishment, police said, an incident that sparked an outcry.
In a 29-second video that has gone viral, four boys in school uniforms simulate sex acts under a tree in the schoolyard as teachers look on. In the background, the six teachers can be heard chatting and bursting into laughter as a shirtless child wipes tears from his face.
Police said the video “exposing students to indecent acts” was recorded in Nyamache, a rural town some 300 km west of the capital Nairobi.
Six teachers, five women and one man, were arrested and “are contributing to the investigation”, police said in a report seen by AFP. They will be prosecuted on appropriate charges, she added.
The incident caused an uproar on social media in this largely conservative country.
Education Minister Ezekiel Machogu said disciplinary proceedings would be initiated against the teachers and they would be fired if found guilty.
Under Kenya’s Sexual Offenses Act, a person convicted of coercing another to commit an indecent act faces a minimum prison term of five years.
Beyond this incident, the living conditions of students in Kenya are regularly the subject of heated debate, whether or not it is on the relevance or otherwise of corporal punishment, officially prohibited by law in 2001, or more recently on the duration course days.