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"speaker_name": "Ms. Ndung'u",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I was saying, it is not unusual in politics and in Parliaments to have the majority of hon. Members being more senior than the minority who are younger. Even as we want young people to come to this House, I think we need 454 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 5, 2007 to appreciate the experience and the flavour that the senior and older politicians bring. That is what I learnt from this trip. In future, we should be sending out delegations which are zebra, that is composed of a senior politician and a junior one. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, although Hon. Mugo has already talked about this, because she sits on the co-ordinating committee on women MPs' affairs, the IPU is currently assessing the issue of representation. Although it seems as if I consistently talk about this subject, it is the IPU itself that is encouraging women to come to Parliament. In particular it is auditing the issue of participation of women in committees. I note that in this Parliament, there are no women sitting on the watchdog committees. It is fortunate that we have a splattering of women in other committees. We have no woman, for example, sitting on the Parliamentary Service Commission. This is a poor show in terms of our own presentation in the IPU. The majority of Parliaments in this world have a minimum of 15 per cent women. I am hoping that as we move towards the minimum essential reforms, Kenya will be able to bring in the quota system that will ensure that we reach, at least, 14 per cent. Kenya is one of the very few countries that do not pay attention to representation of women. It is ranked among the Islamic countries where women are not allowed to drive or work. We really need to move with the democratic world and claim our place when it comes to the issue of representation of women. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I did attend the IPU meeting at the Commission of Cities of Women in February this year. One of the clear things that we were advised of, as the women MPs who attended that meeting, is that it is so important to include men and boys in moving for women rights. The rationale is that men and boys will provide the solution to the many problems affecting women. Therefore, I will be encouraging all the women MPs in this House, and outside the House, to engage with male MPs in order for us to agree on the repeal of very discriminatory laws. In this House we can agree to pass the Bills such as the Domestic Violence Bill, the Marriage Bill, the Matrimonial Property Bill, the Maternity Leave Motion, and other issues that affect not only women but also men and all of us. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Conference was very interesting. I was privileged to listen to one of our hon. Members presenting when we had a small workshop on poverty, corruption and meeting our Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It was clear that we all agreed as Parliament that there was need to lobby for funding for political parties. An electoral campaign legislation needs to be put in place so that, the temptation to steal from the public coffers is less. We all know that political parties need money to run their programmes. When the proposed Political Parities Bill comes before this House, it is something that must be considered and passed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the resolution that was passed by that particular session, we agreed that the vetting and approval of appointments of senior Government and public officials must be done by Parliament, to ensure meritocracy. Indeed, today was an example when we passed, through the Report of the Departmental Committee on Administration of Justice and Legal Affairs, the nominee from FIDA to the Kenya Anti-Corruption Advisory Board (KACAB). The same resolution also talked about doing a gender audit. It encourages all Parliaments, which are members of IPU, to conduct a systematic gender audit of leadership positions. The problem with this Parliament, with all due respect, is hammering on the issue of tribes all the time. There is no tribe that is 52 per cent of the Kenyan population. I would like to hear this House talking about gender and not tribes. Let me encourage hon. Members of Parliament to re-focus, not on ethnicity, but on gender. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the IPU Conference also passed a resolution on missing persons. It is clear to me, from the discussions at that conference, that most missing persons in the IPU countries go missing because of political prosecutions. In this country, we have April 5, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 455 many missing persons. The issue is dealt with by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). Every day, we see pictures of people in the newspapers who were last seen wearing certain colours of clothes and having particular complexions. The date when they were last seen is also indicated. These people disappear for years. We have seen cases of children being abducted by women who offer to hold babies at bus stops. Those children are never seen again. We do not know what they are used for. We do not know whether they are alive or dead. Therefore, the IPU adopted a proposal that every parliament - and I urge this parliament to do the same - must pass a policy on missing persons. That policy should be attached to a unit within the CID that focuses on missing persons. We also support a forensic medical institute that will be able to assess persons who are dead or missing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, finally, the IPU Meeting adopted a report on a committee on human rights of parliamentarians. Many hon. Members in the world suffer, disappear, are abducted, jailed and even killed. We, in Kenya, think that the 1980s was a bad time for hon. Members. It is nothing compared to some of the countries such as Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and some countries in Latin America. We should appreciate that we exercise a great amount of freedom in this House without punishment. We should congratulate ourselves for dismantling the Nyayo House torture chambers. We should appreciate that in Africa, the democracy in Kenya is only second to that of South Africa. We need to celebrate our place in the IPU that we are, indeed, a democracy. We are not just a young and budding democracy. We are a good example to other countries and delegations from other Parliaments. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to move."
}