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{
    "id": 1547720,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1547720/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 254,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mumma",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, for the opportunity to speak to this report. I congratulate Sen. Crystal Asige for being a true representative of persons with disability. I speak as one who belongs to the family of persons with disability. I speak as a mother of a child with severe disability. Those of us who have members of the family with disability know that we sometimes give up. I am glad that the legislative space has the energies of a person with disability who recognizes that we are fatigued trying to get included in this country and is willing to do the work for us to get included. I thank you, Sen. Crystal Asige, on behalf of mothers of children with disability, persons with disability and persons with severe disability who cannot speak or say anything, but are still human beings of equal rights under the Constitution of Kenya. As members speak to this, I want to mention to us that this right is in the Constitution. It is in Article 27, 54, 53, and Article 2 which makes the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disability to be part of the laws of Kenya. These rights are there. The Convention says that all education systems should integrate persons with disability. Integration means that the designs of buildings should be built to ensure that persons with disability can access. Integration means that the teaching staff should be given the instruction to be able to include persons with disability. It means that you need to factor the different types of disability in schools. You have to factor in those with visual, hearing and even those with physical disability. Unfortunately, we never do it. Persons with a disability have to ask for the rights of persons with disability before it is done. When it is put in the law, its implementation is usually difficult. We are now happy that the law is being passed. However, do not be surprised if a budget is passed with zero amounts of money on how to integrate and include persons with disability. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we will continue soldiering on. Sen. Crystal Asige, I love your energy. Please keep doing this. We are behind you. This does not end with this law. There are many other issues in which we need to include persons with disability. I recently brought a question to the Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Health, on how persons who are dependent on life-saving drugs that control seizures are helped in this country. Those drugs are expensive, but we have no subsidy. The Government does not help. So, if you are a poor family with a child with epilepsy, then your child will degenerate and keep getting fits every day until they die. This is because nobody has a policy on how to include that child to ensure that they access those medications. I want to thank and congratulate the National Assembly for doing a good job by improving what we had passed. I like it when we take laws seriously and look at them on merit to see how we can improve them. I commend them on the New Clauses 66A and New Clauses 73A in terms of inclusion. When we talk about Government projects, we need to keep a quota for persons with disability. When talking about concessions, we need to increase the concessions, in taxes, for persons with disability. It should not just be persons with disability, but we should also do the same for families which have persons with disability who cannot claim on their own. 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."
}