Six teachers have been arrested in Kenya after video surfaced 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 sexual acts under a tree in the schoolyard while 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, in which “students are subjected to indecent acts,” was taken in Nyamache, a rural town about 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 reasonable charges, she added.
The incident caused an uproar on social media in the largely conservative country.
Education Minister Ezekiel Machogu said the teachers would be subject to disciplinary proceedings and would be fired if found guilty.
Under Kenya’s Sex Offenses Act, a person convicted of coercing another person into committing an indecent act faces a minimum sentence of five years.
Apart from this incident, the living conditions of students in Kenya are regularly the subject of heated debates, whether it is about the meaning or not of corporal punishment, which was banned by law in 2001, or more recently on the endurance course days.