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"legal_name": "Christine Mango",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the need to fast track the implementation of education for all programmes aiming at the poor sections of the society to ensure girl-child enrolment and survival is very important. Education holds the key to economic empowerment of people and national development. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is an effective way of fighting poverty. It also promotes democracy and development. Vulnerable children escape disease and poverty by pursuing education. Education safeguards children from exploitation. This is especially the case with the girl-child who gets exploited through child labour, sexual abuse and prostitution. If the girl-child is kept in school, she escapes all that. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, education also helps protect children from marginalisation and discrimination. Therefore, education is a fundamental right to children and the international community has realised this. Therefore, there are many conventions and protocols which enshrine education as a right. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes education as a human right. The International Convention on Economic and Social Development also includes education as a human right. The Covenant of Rights of a Child (1989) includes the child's right to education. International Labour Organisation Minimum Age Convention (1973) includes education as a right. The African Charter on Rights and Welfare of the Child (1998) deals with the education of the girl- child. Therefore, all the human rights instruments recognise education as a human right. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, these instruments have called on States to factor education into their development agenda as part of the child's human rights. This should include, primary, secondary and vocational education, taking up special measures with regard to the girl-child who is April 25, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 895 disadvantaged. Every country tries to pursue the challenges to achieve free primary education as a way of empowering children. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the World Conference on Women in Beijing, China and the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, looked at education as one way of empowering children and ensuring they are provided with their human rights. In Kenya, in the year 2003 when free primary education was introduced, 1.2 million children who had been home went to school. This shows that many children in Kenya had been left out of education. Most of those children were girls. Poor parents prefer the girl-child to work as house maids in order to earn money to educate her brothers. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, those children were out of school as a result of poverty. If we are to fight poverty, we have to ensure that everybody gets education. Free primary education has made it possible for many children to go to school. Therefore, we need to follow it up with free secondary education so that those from primary schools can move on. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, children from poor families cannot afford secondary education because school fees are too high for them to afford. When it comes to the girl-child, she cannot complete her secondary education, especially if she comes from a poor family. Currently, many families in Kenya are affected by poverty and HIV/AIDS. The girl-child is a victim of all these. She therefore, drops out to join child labour and prostitution. In Kenya, we recently heard of the girl- child being trafficked to the coast tourist hotels for prostitution. Therefore, the girl-child remains very disadvantaged. The girl-child, in this case, runs the risk of getting infected with HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the above considerations are the reasons for moving this Motion. The Government needs to address girl-child education to ensure that there is greater enrolment of the girl-child in schools. The girl-child needs to gain greater access to education and in so doing, she will be fulfilling her human rights. At the moment, there is gender inequality in accessing education. In Kenya, although the women constitute 66 per cent of the population, most of the women remain illiterate. That makes them to be disadvantaged because they cannot take part in politics, social life and employment. Therefore, they remain the poorest in this country. From 1999 to 2000, the girl-child enrolment rate remained very low. It was almost one-third of the total enrolment in the country. When free primary education was introduced, the girl-child enrolment improved. But primary education alone is not going to help the girl-child. When someone stops schooling at the primary school level without adding any extra skills, at the end of the day, that person becomes illiterate. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, since 2003, the girl-child performance in secondary school is very low. While the boy-child attains nearly 80 per cent, the girl-child performance remains very low, at 30 per cent. If you look at performance taken from the top from every province, taking into account 100 top students, the girl-child performance in some areas remained at 1 per cent and in the best areas, it only attained 30 per cent. This shows that the girl-child is doing poorly in all the provinces. If we want this country to develop, we must address the girl-child education, because if you educate a man, you are educating an individual. But if you educate a woman, you are educating the community. If the woman is educated, the nutrition and eduction of the children will be addressed. Therefore, the development of the country will be addressed. We need to address the education of the girl-child and bring her up to join nation-building. You cannot have a country where only 30 per cent of the population is participating in development. Therefore, we are wasting a lot of resources. We are putting a lot of money in the free primary education and yet the girl-child does is not moving on. This means that the resources put in free primary education are not bearing fruit and it looks like wasted effort. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the economics of education demand that from primary school, we move on to secondary school then to university and then produce educated and productive people 896 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 25, 2007 who can contribute to the economy of this country. If those people do not move on to become productive, then all the resources put in are wasted. Therefore, we need to address that and bring on board all the girls so that they join secondary schools, vocational schools, university and so on, so that they are part and parcel of the Kenyan resourceful community. If a half of the community is marginalised, it means that we are operating at half capacity. Therefore, we are losing on the 50 per cent of the population that does not develop to be productive. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the gender inequality in Kenya has remained stagnant, especially for the woman and the girl-child. I, therefore, urge the Government to seriously consider affirmative action which can bring the girl-child on board. In the rural areas, mixed schools are doing more harm than good. If you take the statistics of the mixed schools, you will find that a school can exist for ten years but there is no girl who manages to go to the university. That is wasting resources. There are also cultural practices that have hindered the girl-child education like early marriages, stigma in some communities for the girl to go to school, female genital mutilation, fear of mathematics and science based subjects and child labour. When the girl-child goes home, she is bogged down with domestic chores and cannot study. She gets over-worked and cannot study and perform well. Currently, the effects of HIV/AIDS has become a major constraint to the girl-child. She takes care of the sick parents and, when they die, she remains behind to take care of the siblings. This has become a major handicap for the girl-child progress. Therefore, we need to do a little bit more to improve the girl-child's education and performance. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, to improve the girl-child performance and productivity in Kenya, the Ministry has to put certain things in place so that the girl-child can also thrive. Kenya is a signatory to all the conventions and international protocols and yet it does not domesticate any of those protocols which affect the girl-child. The girl-child has been left to fend for herself which she cannot do under very hostile environment. To correct the situation, the Ministry needs to main- stream girl-child education in the system and establish a girls' fund to assist vulnerable girls, especially HIV/AIDS orphans to pursue education. The girl-child also needs role models but there are very few women role models in the rural areas in Kenya. There is need to encourage all the girl schools to have role models of high standards whom they can look up to. There is a tendency in some areas to withdraw girls from schools for marriage. Imagine a seven year-old girl getting married to a mzee . I ask my colleagues, particularly men, \"would you like your seven year-old daughter to get married to another mzee ?\" We should desist from such practices because they hinder the progress of our girls. Look at the seven year-old girl as your daughter and stop marrying her off. It is just not right. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need model boarding schools. Last week, in one of the Motions, some of my colleagues said that we do not need boarding schools. I urge the Government to put up model boarding schools for the girl-child so that she can concentrate on her education. In mixed schools, the girl is there and the boy is there. At that age their hormones are playing havoc, therefore, they cannot concentrate. Both boys and girls do not do well. But when they are separated, they both thrive. Therefore, I advocate for model boarding schools where girls can concentrate. The model schools should be well equipped and staffed so that the girls can concentrate and be resourceful."
}