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{
    "id": 1028608,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1028608/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 273,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Seme, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. James Nyikal",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 434,
        "legal_name": "James Nyikal",
        "slug": "james-nyikal"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, we are party to many international agreements and conventions. In March every year, we go to New York in large numbers for the Commission on the Status of Women Conference, to listen to nations giving reports on the status of women. We are party to that event and we attend regularly. We are also a party to the Commission on Total Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and the Maputo Declaration within Africa. There is no question as to whether we should discuss this, but we are just doing it as a formality. We must support this Sessional Paper. As I conclude, the most important thing is the implementation of the policies that we put in place. If we had time, we would amend the recommendations. What we need is monetary. We have the policies. The Ministry in charge of gender should develop that data. The data and indices of gender equity in development are there. That is needed. If the Chair or any Member of the Committee is here, I propose that we have the data and indices developed and then every year, we have a gender data report telling us the gender proportion in areas of legislation, education and Government. That should be published every year, so that we can put people to task. That is something that we need to do. Another thing that needs to be done as part of the recommendation is gender mainstreaming. Gender issues are not sex issues; they are development issues. If you start thinking of gender issues, for example, in health, you will not just think of family planning. You will think of provision and availability of health services to children not even for women because to a large extent, in this country, children are taken care of by their mothers. Therefore, if those facilities are not easy to access, it is a gender issue. The availability of water to a large extent - that may later change - is still a burden of women. We need to know how the availability of water will contribute to gender equity. This is more complicated than what we see. The ministry responsible should develop all those indices. In agriculture, availability of fertilizers and use of equipment… There are many things that say this is meant for ladies and that is for men. It is important that what men do is looked at as a gender issue. When that data is available, it should be reported every year so that we can look at it. We should mainstream this in ministries, departments and parastatals. When we look at financial organisations, how do we mainstream gender in them? When we started the Women Enterprise Development Fund, it was realised that there were many women who wanted to get loans, but the arrangement in banks, as we know, is complex. We wondered, if that was relaxed just for women, what about men? We said that it does not have to be that an organisation is basically for women. It can be one that men are in it and if its leadership is fair enough, it can qualify to get the Women Enterprise Development Fund money. This is something that we need to do. What we should do is to have another - and the Members of the Committee are here - recommendation as number four in monitoring, using data and indices that will give us the status of gender equity in all areas. We also need to mainstream gender issues in all departments and policies. With that, I support this Sessional Paper. 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."
}