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{
    "id": 1028598,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1028598/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 263,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nominated, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Dennitah Ghati",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13514,
        "legal_name": "Jacquiline Adhiambo Oduol",
        "slug": "jacqueline-adhiambo-oduol"
    },
    "content": " Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to debate and discuss about this very important Paper. At the outset, I do support Sessional Paper No.2 of 2019 on gender and development. I support not because I am a woman or a woman with disability but, because I am a Kenyan. Women’s rights are human rights. That is why it is an issue that requires attention so that we see how we support initiatives that advance women. This discussion is coming at a great time in this country. We are at a very strong constitutional moment of the BBI. We are also at a very important time in this country when, only November last year, you will remember, Kenya hosted the Nairobi Summit on the ICPD25. I have been in the women’s movement since 2008 when I started working for the League of Kenya Women Voters. These are the issues. When we are talking about women in this country or women of gender all over the world, people always tend to think that we are talking about women. But we have known along the way and along the line that when you empower a woman, that woman and those benefits generally benefit her community and her country. Therefore, we have no choice than to really support women. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, if you are aware, Kenya as a country that we love is a signatory to so many international conventions and treaties that are actually put together to promote the rights of women. Kenya is a signatory to the SDGs. Kenya is a signatory to the Convention on Human and People’s Rights. Kenya is also a signatory to an international treaty we call the CEDAW—the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. So, Kenya has no shortage of laws regarding women. What we probably need to strengthen as a country is the implementation of those laws. Our Constitution is clear on our rights. We have no choice. Again, when we are talking about women or gender in this country, I want to bring the voices of women with disability in this country. When we are talking about women in this country, we have somehow tended to leave behind women with disability who are our wives, our sisters and our mothers. We cannot afford to do that because I bring their voices to this House. Even with this Sessional Paper, we still know and see that women’s representation has been wanting. It is in this House, in the last Parliament, where we failed to even pass the two-thirds gender rule. One year later, and after the International Conference in Population Development (ICPD) 25 was held in Nairobi, we are discussing the Sessional Paper. The spaces we enjoy as women representatives or as nominated Members are as a result of the women that came before us. Those are the women who provided the spaces for us to sit here. The spirit of the BBI is purely for the women of this country. For the first time in law, we will engender the political process that has been wanting."
}