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    "id": 1299831,
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    "content": "reflect the fact that we have child-parents who might not have IDs and that their children are denied access to that care centre. Considering that we want these child parents to go back to school and pursue the dreams they have, the establishment of these care centres that are already in existence and others that will come up, should reflect the fact that they are accommodating the existence of child parents. That means they should not discriminate the facilities of the services against child parents. Madam Temporary Speaker, in my short stay in Marafa, Kilifi County, where we went to look into the issue of teenage pregnancies and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevalence on young mothers, I noted that there was a lack of understanding from the institutions that are supposed to guide and ensure that our child parents are protected. For instance, on the issue of establishing whether the pregnant girl was sexually abused or it was a case of Romeo and Juliet, you will find that the girl child parent receives a lot of hostility that they just choose not to give information. Even as I second this Bill, I urge Sen. Miraj to consider adding a statement or two in terms of the protection of the child-parents in relevance to how the child parents became parents. I mean to say that it would be proper, not only for purposes of documentation, but for purposes of ensuring that we are not further stigmatizing victims of sexual abuse, who happen to be child parents. It would be proper that we not only add the issue of establishment of care centres by county governments, but also the psycho- social support of the teenage girls who are pregnant because they have been abused or have gone through a hostile environment, such that the teenage girl has not been able to document how they found themselves in that situation. Madam Temporary Speaker, we are dealing with readmission to school postnatal and prenatal access to information and county governments ensuring that those centres are there, maybe or not within this Bill, in order to also establish psychosocial support for these child parents, so that they are guided on how to be parents. Remember, these are children who are now having children, whatever the circumstances. This is something that is needed based on what I witnessed in Marafa, Kilifi County, even in my own Kisii County and in different places in Kenya. We need to establish some sort of law that will make sure that we are not encouraging child parents or creating room to have more children who are having children because we are sort of incentivizing it. The idea of this Bill is not to promote teenage pregnancies, but is to understand that we have a lot of teenage pregnancies and many children who are not parents. So, what do we do about that as we are trying to mitigate to ensure that we bring an end to teenage pregnancies? Madam Temporary Speaker, with those remarks, I thank Sen. Miraj for bringing a very important piece of legislation that is very much needed. I hope that as we discuss it in the House, my fellow Senators will see that this is something that we urgently need to pass into law and work with county governments to implement it. I beg to second. Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker."
}