By Harold Ayodo

Peeping at mobile phone messages of your spouse without consent would be an offence according to a new Bill.

Secretly logging into electronic mails (e-mails), Facebook or keeping track of marriage partners without their knowledge will be punishable.

The Bill that seeks to restore dignity in marriage also prohibits trailing and hurling of abuse at your spouse.

The Family Protection Bill 2007, includes stalking of spouses in offences that amount to domestic violence. It defines stalking as pursuing or accosting.

Section three of the Bill also lists sexual, physical and verbal abuses as forms of violence in marriage.

Others are harassment, intimidation, emotional, psychological abuse and forcible entry into the house of your separated spouse.

The Bill also considers — as violence — abuses resulting from cultural practices as forced marriages, female genital mutilation and forced wife inheritance.

Lawyers and clerics consulting on the Bill at a two-day workshop at Elementaita Country Lodge unanimously approved it.

The National Commission on Gender and Development (NCGD) organised the function that brought on board the Kenya Law Reform Commission.

Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (Supkem) legal advisor Sheikh Ibrahim Lethome said the proposed law was welcome.

"The Bill seeks to provide a legal framework to stem rampant cases of domestic violence," he said.

Family lawyer Judy Thong’ori said the proposed law would for the first time since Independence define what constitutes the offences of domestic violence.

Radical changes

"The current law treats most cases of violence in marriage simply as assault or grievous harm, which does little to curb the vice," Ms Thong’ori told the meeting.

Efforts to move a Domestic Violence Bill flopped in 2000.

NCGD Director Peterlis Nyatuga said the Bill seeks to conform to social and economic development of the country.

"Society has undergone radical changes over the past century and we need legislation that is in tandem with the developments," Mr Nyatuga said.

Reverend George Kahuho of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa and Pastor Willie Ngugi (SDA) were among clerics who approved the Bill.

Others church leaders were David Koech (Kenya Assemblies of God) and Julius Kitheka (Nairobi Pentecostal Church).