KENYAN broadcast media will from next year face government regulation aimed at weeding out sexual content, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za.
Information permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo said his ministry was working on regulations that would control content on TV and radio stations aired between 6am and 10pm when minors were most likely to access the programmes.
FM stations have over the last two years concentrated on sexual debates to sell their shows, a trend popular with listeners.
According to The Cradle, a not-for-profit NGO that promotes childrens rights, unmonitored use of technology is exposing youngsters to harm.
Ndemo said that with the growth of the Internet, children were at risk of sex predators who looked for their victims online.
"We are also faced with a crisis where our children are involved in immoral activities which are recorded and later sold in the streets," Ndemo said, adding that the film classification department had confiscated videos of adult material involving children.
According to the Communications Commission of Kenya, the number of Internet users has grown from 50,000 to more than 3.5 million in under a decade.
A new trend known as sexting where teens exchange sexual content via text messages is said to be rampant among secondary school students aged between 15 and 18 years.
The chairman of the National Association of Parents, Musau Ndunda, welcomed the governments move, saying: "Parents have a role to play in ensuring harmful content is not transmitted to children."
