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{
    "id": 1496951,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1496951/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 173,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Crystal Asige",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "had to bury their parents or their mother this weekend? How would you ask minors to start going through all the processes outlined in this Bill? Would it be fair to tell people, who are grieving, of the timelines and processes which they have to follow and if not, they will be running contrary to the law and could face fines and even jail time? That is a difficult conversation. I also thought about cases where people have multiple fundraisers that they are doing at the same time. For example, bringing a body home from abroad where somebody has passed away. That is one type of fundraising appeal, perhaps. Then maybe, another committee within the same family is taking care of the funeral costs now in the home county of the deceased person and maybe there is a third fundraiser because they have to think about the children of that deceased person and how they are going to go to school. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, so in one family, there could be multiple fundraisers which are going on concurrently. How do we deal with that through this Bill? Like I said as well, how does this Bill deal with situations where, for example, you are looking at marginalized groups? How do you ask, for example like in Nakuru County where I support a young lady whose mother is severely schizophrenic and she is only in her early 20s? She is just a young girl taking care of her mother who cannot take care of herself. What if in her case, because she needs fundraising which is continuous to get medication for her mother and which is very expensive in light of schizophrenia and those kinds of intellectual and developmental disabilities, which are also invisible, how do we then convince or support such a situation through this Bill? There are several things that we have not really considered about in the real life situation of what is going on the ground. I do understand the objectives from the Senate Majority Leader which I read through in the preparation of my contribution and there are some which are very noble and to be honest, very progressive in my view. I believe that we are a democracy that is not quite there yet because the majority of our population are still very needy in many ways. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, if this was Switzerland, Australia, the United States or Canada, perhaps, then we could think about realizing this in the best way possible. However, we are not there yet, and I am not sure that we will be helping, and we might be hurting the situation if this Bill does not go through a lot of corrections and amendments to try and cure some of the issues that have been raised by many Senators this evening. We do not want to promote this one objective which I see here - the culture of dependency. I am not sure that that is a fair statement because of the kind of society we live in. We are dependent, that is just the fact and it is a reality. The majority of us are dependent, and we do not want this kind of Bill to speak to the public and say that we are punishing the majority, whilst trying to control the minority who may abuse harambees or fundraising appeals. How can we justify that to the masses who are the majority of Kenyans? We do not want to speak or legislate from a point of privilege. That is what I am trying to say. I am concerned that is what we might be risking if we continue without heavily amending or even rethinking this entire subject matter. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}