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{
    "id": 1213005,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1213005/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 357,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Children are very vulnerable and defenseless. There are many videos that go around and some of those modern cameras give coordinates or the Global Positioning System (GPS) locations of where these crimes happen. When a video is recorded, any serious police-person should be able to pinpoint and arrest the perpetrators just by examining the video and looking at the coordinates of where it was recorded. I hope that our police department will be proactive in that. I pray that the Children’s Act be revisited and maybe higher sanctions can be passed on people who abuse children especially within the framework of schools and families where children should feel the safest. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I stand to support this Motion and plead with this House to rally behind the Statement and make sure that anybody perpetrating violence against children lives to regret it. Violence against children at the institutional level should be taken further. We should get to a point where the Government provides lunch for primary school children. It is extreme violence to have a child go to school on an empty stomach and be expected to stay on for eight hours. Some form of a feeding program should be initiated. For my colleagues in the “bottom-up” formation, there is no better bottom-up than raising a child. This is because you raise him from the bottom to a full human being. Within the bottom-up arrangement, let us find a formula for providing children with some of food. Former President Daniel Arap Moi, (may his soul rest in peace), was able to give children milk when Kenya had a much smaller economy. The budget of Kenya in those days was a few shillings yet he was able to do that. Why can we not feed our children with the trillions we have today as well as support our dairy farmers who are struggling? I know where Sen. Cherarkey comes from, farmers are struggling to break even. A feeding program could be one way of an affirmative action that would also support our farmers as well as give us a win-win situation whereby our children go to school and can get a bowl of soup or a plate of maize and beans. We should not look at violence in terms of whips and kicking around. We should also look at violence in terms of sustaining a ritually neutral environment where a child can grow and thrive. I support."
}