Our mandate

The Kenya Film Censorship Board was established in the 1930s as a statutory body with a regulatory role under Part III of the Films and Stage Plays Act Cap.222 of the Laws of Kenya. The Act has empowered the Board to censor films for public exhibition and to ensure that they conform to national aspirations.

Like all other countries, Kenya seeks to protect its youth from unsuitable content and as a multi ethnic developing country; the country also needs to preserve ethnic, racial and religious harmony. With the impact and influence of both Kenyan movies and the influx of foreign cultural imports, censorship will continue to play an important role in fostering a morally wholesome and socially cohesive society and safeguard core community values such as the importance of a family, respect for one's elders and moral integrity.

The censorship and classification of films into varying categories not only allows adults the opportunity to see a wider range of films dealing with the realities of the adult world, but at the same time restricts children and youth from viewing what could be harmful to them. This is besides ensuring that other kinds of objectionable materials capable of inciting civil disorder is reduced or eliminated altogether. The classification system serves two different functions; first, it lays down a set of legally enforceable rules to restrict admission and access to adult films by minors. On the other hand, it offers to parents some advance information about the suitability of the film so that parents can make informed decisions about what to watch, and or let their children watch.

As the Board moves closer towards classification, industry players must perform an equally crucial role as the government, by adopting some degree of self censorship. Moving towards greater industry participation in regulation is important as technological advancements have made censorship by regulators difficult, and secondly, because it is a more practical way to clear content in a timely manner for the consumer advice and co-regulation, including responsibility for film classification. To achieve this, regulators need to have more transparent policies and guidelines.

Our role as a film regulatory body is to determine the likely impact of a movie on the audience, bearing in mind the age, social and religious sensitivities, as well as the overall social benefit of the material in question.

Classification guidelines

The Board's broad philosophy is to apply censorship criteria before classification. It therefore follows that the Board's main considerations are based on certain parameters to ensure that such a film or video has educational or entertainment value apart form promoting Kenyan culture, unity and interest; and that such a film or video is not likely:

At all times, the Board will strive to uphold the tenets of these guidelines subject to normal considerations of fairness and reasonableness. These guidelines, which will be continually reviewed and updated, allow us to be objective yet flexible so we can maintain the integrity of our community standards, but also appreciate and accommodate artistic merit, or social and documentary significance.

David Pkosing

Chief Executive Offficer,

KFCB