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"id": 220684,
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"speaker_name": "Prof. Oniang'o",
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"legal_name": "Ruth Khasaya Oniang'o",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this chance to support this Bill, and to add on to the so many good points that have been brought forward by colleagues, and, really, compliment the Minister for the series of Bills on labour that he has been bringing. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am contributing to this particular Bill on occupational safety and health and saying that for starters, we have not even defined health, and that is why we are questioning what hon. Wamwere is talking about, when workers do not earn their salaries. I am a food and nutrition scientist, and know that if you do not feed workers well, you will not get the best out of them and, in fact, you are endangering their health and lives. So, when we talk about the low-income earners in this country, I want to describe the low- income earner. The low-income earner, whether in agriculture or in the city, live and sleep in sub- standard conditions. The worst mistake they can make is to become sick. Let them lose a relative, and they cannot even afford to go back home. When they are in the city, they walk long distances to go to work. They reach there, they have no food. The kind of research I used to do, going from home to home in low-income areas, you find even where they go for sewage or sanitation is not May 22, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1513 there. They cannot afford to bring their families to live with them. So, their mental, emotional and spiritual health is actually affected. When you ask somebody what age they are, you discover that a 45 year old looks like a 60-year old. This is not fair; I think it goes against human rights. So, I am happy that we have been given a chance to talk about the low-income earners in this country. I am happy to see that these Bills have been worked on so comprehensively, but at the same time, somebody who writes, it does not matter what you write, somebody else reading it will be able to add, subtract or even correct something. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when we talk about the kind of diseases that come out of occupational health--- I have been looking at them in Schedule 524. I would just like to add the kind of disability that comes out of repeated use of a computer. That is a new occupation, and we have so many secretaries who are always by the computer, they virtually become disabled. We would like to see that added here. We have not even talked about eyes. I am telling you that they will become disabled, nobody knows how to treat that at the moment, and it is very unfortunate. This labour used to come out of the old typewriter. I have had to take students to factories, and then you find when machinery is used, where they need protective facilities for their eyes, they are hammering away, chemicals are coming out, chips are coming out and their eyes are unprotected. It is a shock. When you ask them whether they have protection clothing, they go and bring it, because nobody bothers to ensure that they actually use protective clothing. Whose fault is that? The employer should ensure that if a worker does not use a protective outfit, they actually should be made to lose their job, because they are going to become disabled and a liability unto themselves, to the employer and to their families. We go to many places where fire could break out, and you discover there are no fire extinguishers, yet even the old law had required that there be a fire extinguisher. So, we are talking about enforcement. It is all right to have all these nice sounding statements, to have legislation. I find that many Kenyans, even where legislation exists, do not even know that it exists. So, I would like the Minister, just as the previous speakers have said, to make sure that when you have such good a law, and you have spent a lot of man hours on it, that, indeed, it is actually enforced. We know that many of the chemicals, especially in agriculture, in education, in the biological sciences, anywhere where chemicals are used like in Webuye Paper, in factories where effluent is actually disposed of, cause cancer. But you cannot tell that, in fact, somebody with a cancer which they develop years later and they have even left the job, actually they get it at their place of work. So, it becomes a long-drawn court case, and we are talking of workers who do not have the capacity to even employ a lawyer to follow up this issue. So, they end up dying quietly. We have so many Kenyans dropping dead, and we do not do post-mortems, and we have no idea what they have died from. There are so many cancers and we keep wondering where all these cancers are coming from. But when you trace it, you will find that this person, in fact, worked somewhere where this could have been contracted. But to pin down the employer, or the factory or company, and say that this cancer was caused when this person was working here is a nightmare. So, many workers are dying unnecessarily without compensation. So, when it comes to these issues affecting our workers, I think it is time for us to enact a legislation, to show that we care for the very many workers in this country. Unlike what hon. Wamwere said, I would request the Minister to visit workers on sisal, rice, tea and white settlers' farms. I was shocked when we were travelling to Naivasha recently, to realise that the one-roomed grass-thatched houses still exist, since the colonial days. Kenyans, more than 40 years after Independence, are still living in these little and tiny houses. This is not fair! Therefore, we should support the Minister by passing this Bill. But, Mr. Minister, you 1514 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 22, 2007 should not wait for the legislation to be enacted. You should go round and see where the workers are living right now. Many of their representatives, often, live well, like us. But I am personally aware of the conditions of the workers, because my research work has taken me to many areas. It makes me sad to realise that we are an independent Kenya, yet, we have workers living in substandard conditions. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}