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{
    "id": 1268909,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1268909/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 236,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Marakwet West, Independent",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Timothy Kipchumba",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "I thank the Member from Kirinyaga County, my friend, Hon. Njeri Maina, for this substantive Motion on the introduction of comprehensive health education as a core subject in schools. We have an extremely progressive Constitution in this country. The Constitution recognises health as a basic right under the Bill of Rights. Article 43 of the Constitution clearly provides the right to health. For the avoidance of doubt, it says that every person has a right to the highest attainable standards of health, including reproductive health. When the law talks about every person, it includes pupils and students within our learning institutions. Therefore, I fully support and endorse the fact that reproductive health should be brought in our institutions. We need to inculcate this in as young as our children are. I have read widely. There is a Reproductive Health Policy in the country that was passed in 2012. As you are aware, a policy is not self-executing. We need a comprehensive legal and institutional framework so that this policy can be anchored in law. So that when we say that we want to introduce something in the curriculum, it must be founded on some instrument of law. This is very important. Again, those who were born in this country in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, realise that the issue goes back to the moral fabric of our society. In as much as we want to put this in our education curriculum in Kenya, it goes back to the basic morality of our society. How is our moral conscience as a country? We need not put it in the curriculum as such. Even the way parents teach and bring up their children, it is very important to tell them that we respect parents and that we respect the family as a basic unit of a society. In my opinion, parents have abdicated their responsibilities. The society as a whole has abdicated its responsivity. When I grew up, a child did not belong to anyone specifically, but rather to everybody or the community. If a child committed an offence, he was subject to punishment by the community. Hon. Temporary Speaker, if this curriculum is introduced in our education system, it will enable the teachers or those who are training them to teach them about basic laws in our community. I come from a community where harmful cultural practices like FGM still exist. We need to teach our children that there is a law that exists in this country, that is, the Female Genital Mutilation Act which is punitive to anybody purporting to aid or abet any action related to FGM. It is very important that we teach such things in schools too. It should be included in the curriculum of our learning institutions. That way, pupils and students will know that FGM is an offence. That the one abetting or doing the same commits an offence and is liable to punishment. The other law that should also be included and taught in schools is the Children Act. It has various progressive provisions on the rights of children. It informs on children’s reproductive rights and health. There is also the Sexual Offences Act. It is a Legislation that should be taught in our learning institutions. We must teach our children of its existence because it provides punitive measures in case anybody breaches it. This will bring in the issue of responsible parenthood so that children, at a very young age, will know how to raise their families when they attain the age of maturity and decide to marry. I fully support this Motion. I want to thank the Mover of this Motion, Hon. Njeri, for bringing it to the House. Above all, I also call upon the Member, because she is a Lawyer, that she considers introducing legislation on reproductive health in this country so that it covers or caters for the interests of the minors and also those that are of maturity age. It will be a very important legislation for this country because it will seek to answer some questions that the policy cannot. This is because a policy is only a statement of intention and may not have the legal effect as a legislation would. I beg to rest my case on that front. Thank you."
}