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{
"id": 1371893,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1371893/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Tabitha Mutinda",
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"speaker": null,
"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. Let me start by saying that it is a very dark valentine for most of the women parliamentarians. This is because it is a day that we celebrate love, but the same love has brought darkness in terms of death. Before I proceed, I want to appreciate some of our male colleagues in the Senate, that is Sen. Maanzo, Sen. Wafula, and our good Senator for Nandi County, the great Senator from Embu, Sen. Mundigi for appreciating us as women and for standing with us on this femicide discussion. I cannot forget you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, for being on the Chair during this discussion that we, as female Senate legislators, requested and hoped that our male counterparts in the House would be here. However, it gets darker because it looks like it is a women's issue only. We need you; you need us. We need to have this conversation together. We cannot achieve the menace of femicide without men. I appreciate the male Serjeant-at- Arms in the House; I do. They are our brothers; we work together. We are colleagues. This discussion of femicide has been misinterpreted. It is not wrong to love; it is a choice. It is not criminal to decide whom you want to share your life with; there is no problem. The problem that we are addressing as legislators is that our girls will innocently get into mutual relations. As a parent, it pains to the core when you bury your young one simply because she was in the normal path of puberty; normal process that we all go through and then, someone decides to end their destiny. It is dark; it is a dark valentine. As we have said, and as I look at Article 43 of the Constitution, which says very clearly that everyone has equal rights to the different facilities from education, social, economic, health, and all that. Equally, there is freedom of choice, freedom of the ones you choose. There is no law that is against that; it is a choice. Citizens have questioned Parliament and asked where we have been. I want to state that the law is very clear. The law is very clear and nobody is above the law, especially when it comes to matters of killings. I have narrowed it down to the security forces. Security forces seem not to have handled these issues fairly. Just last month, in January, when we lost a young girl, and Mr. Matara was mentioned to be the killer, several young women came out. I am so proud of them because were it not for their decision to come out and tell their stories, we would not have known the much that we now know. It saddens me that they reported these issues and nothing was done. In a nutshell, I want to say, our brothers, the boy child, the future, we urge you, let us respect one another, be able to share what God said we should share, the love that has also been mentioned in the Bible."
}