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{
    "id": 718306,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/718306/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 250,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Kibunguchy",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 294,
        "legal_name": "Enoch Wamalwa Kibunguchy",
        "slug": "enoch-kibunguchy"
    },
    "content": "Let me also start by wishing all of us, you included, a happy New Year 2017. Secondly, I would like to generally agree with what most of the Members have said. I would also like to ask my sister, Florence, to look at certain aspects. They could be controversial, but that is why we are in this House. One of them is if a woman is raped, there are many consequences. She will suffer physical injuries, psychological injuries, but more importantly she could become pregnant. I have not seen her address that part. We need to look at that and see what we need to do. I am looking at three aspects that we must address. Yes, we are Christians. I have heard people talk about sex education and saying bishops are against this and that. But we are living in a real world. This girl is raped by a gang. Yes, earlier on we had people say it becomes difficult to gather evidence, but in the process she gets pregnant. This girl is assaulted and raped by her father or a close relative and she gets pregnant. This girl is assaulted by somebody who is HIV positive and she gets pregnant. We need to address that. In this country when you talk about termination of pregnancy, everybody’s hair stands because people do not want to look at that. Truly, the Constitution allows us, and we can go around it, in certain circumstances especially when the health of the mother is threatened that we terminate the pregnancy. I would like the Member who has come up with these amendments to look at that and see how we can craft it in these amendments to take care of these vulnerable groups that not many people have addressed. The second area that I would like us to look at is this whole concept of fines. I do not know whether the higher the fine, the more deterrent it is. Or does it just open up doors for people to compromise? We have increased fines on our roads, has it reduced road carnage? In my view, no. we need to look at the whole aspect of fines and see whether we can get a middle ground and what we need to do. The popular saying all over the streets is that: Why should you hire a lawyer when you can buy a judge? I will also include, when you can buy a police officer, prosecutor. If your fine is Kshs500,000, and if you took Kshs100,0000 to the police officer handling this case, they can mess it up. Is it always that the higher the fine, the more deterrent it is? Thirdly is the whole area of human beings. Human beings are social animals. Human beings over the years court and interact with people of the opposite sex. That is how some of us got our better halves. If we pass a law that is going to make it hard all the time--- I heard a Member saying you cannot even wink at somebody, you cannot stare at somebody. We are social animals. We interact. That is why people get to know each other. That is how people get to meet. If we are making it every time you look a girl, in your mind you are saying: “Oh, she might construe that I am staring at her, that I am winking at her, and that maybe it is an offence” then we are making life so boring. Life is spontaneous. People flirt in offices. People make jokes, sometimes jokes that liven up things. But other people may look at it and say it is an offence. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}