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{
    "id": 225407,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/225407/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 130,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Ms. Mwau",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Labour and Human Resource Development",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 360,
        "legal_name": "Adelina Ndeto Mwau",
        "slug": "adelina-mwau"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I want to congratulate Ms. Abdalla for bringing this Motion. I also want to congratulate the Government for agreeing with the Mover that the proposed Bill is overdue. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is an issue which is very close to my heart. As I stand here, I am picturing villagers drowning themselves in alcohol, young men and women dying of alcohol and drug abuse, and an eight-year-old child who is already alcoholic at a rehabilitation centre. So, this is an issue we have, for a long time, ignored. There is a lot of denial of alcoholism amongst teachers, civil servants and leaders of our calibre. It is an issue we need to address seriously and very quickly. This is an issue with acute consequences, which is more serious than HIV/AIDS. Alcoholism is a personal, family and societal disease. It is a disease which a lot of us deny, and that affects the whole family. One major cause of poverty in Kenya is drug abuse and alcoholism. As I said, as we sit here to deliberate on this Motion, villages are collapsing because men wake up very early in the morning and proceed to drink the whole day. They go back home to ask for food. This is the planting season, but they do not help their families to plant or come up with businesses. So, it is an issue that we need to deal with seriously. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I know several teachers who have been interdicted. A lot of them have died of liver-related ailments and mental cases because of alcoholism. The local people have very little information on the dangers of drug abuse. Rehabilitation centres are very expensive. In order to take your relative to a rehabilitation centre, you need to pay millions of shillings. The people who are affected by this problem are very poor. They cannot afford the fees charged by rehabilitation centres. This is a health issue and it should not be handled by the Office of the President, but rather by the Ministry of Health, which should establish rehabilitation centres at every provincial and district hospital, so that our people can be helped to quit the bad habits that are finishing them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, facilities that have been established cannot adequately support the people affected by that disease. Those are poor people who do not even April 18, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 697 understand that alcoholism and drug abuse is a disease. I have seen many families that have been affected by that disease. Such families spend million and millions of shillings to rehabilitate their children. It is only such families that can afford to rehabilitate their children. This is a disease that the National Agency for Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NACADA) needs to go out and create awareness that it is a family disease. It is a disease like HIV/AIDS. It is a disease like tuberculosis and needs to be understood."
}