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"id": 1028561,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1028561/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Homa Bay CWR, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Gladys Wanga",
"speaker": {
"id": 590,
"legal_name": "Gladys Atieno Nyasuna",
"slug": "gladys-atieno-nyasuna"
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"content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I rise to support this Sessional Paper on National Gender and Development. When President Obama visited Kenya when he was the sitting President of the United States of America (USA), he said that to have a team and only have half of your members play is a folly of the century. In this country, we have women at 52 per cent being more than the men. Therefore, it is important that both genders have equal participation opportunities in the development of this country. A lot of progress has been made in the gender debate. As women, we are grateful to the 2010 Constitution for the introduction of Article 27 that speaks about ensuring gender equality as well as Articles 81(b) and 100 and these other articles within the Constitution that gave rise to the position in which we are today. There has been progressive engagement of women. Today, we stand on the verge of history, and I say this with cautious optimism that, probably, the world’s most powerful democracy, that is, the USA, might end up with the first woman Vice-President in its history. So, we will not sleep tonight as we wait for the results. However, knowing what happened in 2016, we are expressing cautious optimism. There are some items that were clearly stipulated in the 2010 Constitution. For example, there are the rights stipulated in Article 43 of the Constitution which directly engage both genders. Particularly, it is important to women to have the right to health, clean water and housing. We put them as rights in the Constitution, but we did not have any mechanism for measuring their implementation. This is why we are happy to engage in the current debate of the BBI. If you look at the BBI Report, it stipulates how we will measure the rights in Article 43 of the Constitution. The President, in his State of the Nation Address, like he will come to present here next week, after the passing of the BBI, will have to then state what his Government has done in the achievement of the rights in Article 43 of the Constitution. That is an important question in gender and development. In the Constitution, we have the two-thirds gender rule. We have brought Bills here and struggled to attain it. It has not been easy because people were asking themselves: “Who is the ‘State’?” Hon. Speaker, you had in one of your Communications questioned: “Who is the ‘State’ that was now mandated to ensure… You told us a story of somebody who said: “You people, you are the Government, but us, we are the State because for you, you come every five years, but for us, we are here throughout.” It was not clear how that was going to be attained. If the BBI can then stipulate, within the Constitution, how to attain the two-thirds gender rule, then that is where our solution lies. As women, we do not want to be misled or politics to be made on this matter because this is a big historic opportunity for women to achieve the two-thirds gender rule as clearly stipulated within the Constitution. This will ensure that we will not look for it with a torch to know exactly where it was. So, the BBI has resolved that question. It is very clear in all the pages of the BBI. 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."
}