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"id": 238302,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/238302/?format=api",
"text_counter": 190,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Mwiria",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Education",
"speaker": {
"id": 190,
"legal_name": "Valerian Kilemi Mwiria",
"slug": "kilemi-mwiria"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I appreciate that I am being given the opportunity to second this very important debate on Sessional Paper No.2 of 2006 on Gender Equality and Development. There is no denying the fact that issues of gender equality have to be confronted rather aggressively and without any fear. We are suffering a lot of under-development because of the inequalities that have existed for a long time, and for which we do not have the courage to pin point and talk about. Our society continues to be very male dominated, shamelessly so. We can see this in employment in terms of who is employed in what kind of sector of this society, who occupies what kind of position in society, in politics, Government, educational institutions, business and social life. We tend to just take women for granted. It is like this is not a big deal. In most cases, even what we do is like an after-thought. In most cases, even in whatever we do, they are like hazards. Women are not supposed to be taken seriously. There are societies here and even people who represent men and women in Parliament who think women are of no consequence and you can just make any kind of joke about them. We do not appreciate the extent of the problem and because 3080 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 19, 2006 we do not want to, sometimes as men, to give up our certain privileges and cultural beliefs and traditions. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it has been stated very clearly many times that women form the majority of the poor. They are also the worst victims of violence, disease and everything else that a civilised society would not want to be associated with. Obviously, it is terrible for the majority of people in this country where almost 60 per cent of the population is very poor but it is much worse for women. So, women are doubly disadvantaged and it is completely unacceptable in this day and age where, as we talk about gender, sometimes we confuse that we are referring to women but we should see gender as a term that relates to both men and women because if we do not see them in their complementarity, it is very difficult to address the issue of women per se . Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we should also appreciate the difficulties women go through. In addition, it is a serious problem if we do not appreciate the potential that we deny women in terms of contributing to development. You cannot have a society where half of the population is marginalised; not only marginalised in terms of benefits but also marginalised in terms of the opportunity to contribute to that development that would be of help, not only to the women but also the men. So, no country can develop if you leave the other half out. It is the same with families. If you have a family and you think that you are just going to depend on the man to be the breadwinner and forget the potential that a woman would present, it is a serious problem in terms of how much you can expect from both what would be accomplished at that level as well as at the wider societal level. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, so, the beginning point for me is to empower women politically because politicians make all the most important decisions. Politicians can ruin or build a country and structures. Politicians are the most critical and that is why I get disappointed when all the time people speak about politics being a dirty game and leaving very dirty people to make important decisions that relate to managing you, national resources and making all the decisions that would affect each one of us. For women, to be better represented and listened to and for us to ensure that we deal with their issues much more seriously than has been the case, we must insist on their being much more represented in decision-making organs, beginning with Parliament. I do not know whether we have ever had even an acting woman as a Speaker in the seat you are occupying since Independence or even before, and that is really a reflection of the seriousness of the problem. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not know even as we talk about women Ministers--- We are talking very well now about the few that we have as Ministers, but I think it is scandalous in a country where women still comprise almost 60 per cent of the population and where they are the majority of the voters. It is very unfair that they hope to be represented by moral people, many of whom even vote for very conservative men who do not want to hear about them and so it is a very serious problem. So, in terms of their being involved in politics, first of all to be represented at the level of Cabinet and Assistant Ministers and so on, they have to be Members of Parliament. They have to be represented at the level of the civic authorities and other political offices but even other leadership positions including in churches where women are the majority of the congregation but I wonder how many of them actually occupy leadership positions in those congregations unless you are a leader of the women wing of the church but not the overall leader even though the majority of those who come to that church are the women. So, these are serious issues because, until we get them represented at that point in terms of occupying those leadership positions, we are getting nowhere and we must therefore do everything to ensure that we do not just talk about one third of the Constitution obviously much of the battle has to be fought by the women themselves and their support will be men who think like them or who support the fight to get out of that. However, this is an issue we have to address, if we are serious about getting our women to be much more involved in development and contributing that October 19, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3081 part which they deserve to contribute by virtue of their numbers. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, outside of politics, we have to address domestic decision-making processes and we need to educate our children much more in terms of supporting their mothers. We need to get our women to benefit much more from education because only then can they occupy positions that would be of any significance. In terms of decisions related to farming, making business decisions and participating in doing budget at home, because usually we leave it to the men and it is like women have no business being involved in those kinds of decisions and yet they have to bear much of the brunt of the decisions that are taken on the use of available family and other resources. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the point has been made about addressing legal issues and our legal framework continues to be very oppressive with regard to women and there are very many issues that we can look at here. The first one for me being again, greater presence of women in legal making structures as judges, magistrates and as people working in the Attorney-General Chambers, in the Justice and Constitutional Affairs Ministry and in any other organs that have to do with the law that affects not just men but also women; to address more seriously the issue of divorce and the disadvantage that women have to deal with when it comes to issues of divorce, abortion, adoption, marriage, career paths after you have gotten married; the support that you get from your employers in terms of how much time you have, for example, to be on leave or to even support your own education to be able to take up opportunities that are available for those who have higher education; and also issues related to succession, property rights, violence against women and issues of polygamy. I think we have to confront those issues. Polygamy is only advantageous to men and it is very oppressive and unless we again have the courage to talk about it, many of the underlying problems related to oppression that have something to do with polygamy would not go away until we address this and the legal structures that have got something to do with it. Issues of early marriages including those traditional societies that begin to bear young girls and not giving them a chance to make independent decisions when they are completely helpless in terms of having the ability to make decisions that can have any useful bearing in their lives. Basically, again it is the whole issue about addressing those traits of our societies that favour men to continue to oppress women at their own advantage and to benefit from such arrangements that although conservative and very backward, continue to live on because they advantage certain sections of our societies and especially our men. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Sessional Paper also looks at issues of education and these are issues we have spoken about very much in terms of not just getting women or girls to participate but to continue to complete school. They should not just go through primary and secondary education but also go to university and ensure that they get into certain departments of universities and faculties that will make a difference when it comes to graduation. For example, we have to have polices that support the participation of women in engineering and scientific fields in our universities. We have to have policies that support participation of women in all the disciplines like architecture and so on that have continued to be male dominated especially because we realise that in terms of post-graduation experience, employment and in terms of independence that we must promote in education and in our women, these are the kinds of degree programmes that would make the difference if we really want to support the economic independence of our women. However, we must also educate our men to appreciate educated women. Men tend to be threatened by women who have education which is a serious problem. I mean if we have our university-educated women who cannot find husbands who are educated because men feel threatened, I mean what are we talking about? It is going to be very difficult to support educated or even more women and this is a problem even with people who have property. We cannot leave our educated women to be married by illiterates as second wives because we are threatened by that 3082 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 19, 2006 knowledge. These are issues that the Sessional Paper should address. We should get our men to appreciate that, if they have better halves who are better educated, they should not see them as threats. We should see them as assets to the families and men who become their spouses. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, issues of health have been addressed. They include HIV/AIDS and family planning. I think we must come out very strongly - through education - to put in place a legislation that will give incentives to only a certain number of children in a family. One way of helping our women not to be used by men to give birth every year is to insist on some kind of punishment, if one has limitless number of children. We cannot say that because we have free primary school education, all your children must benefit. You cannot expect all your ten children in secondary schools to benefit from the Bursary Fund. There must be incentives to ensure that men who think they can just get children without taking responsibility are controlled. This Sessional Paper is about education. But it has certain measures that we must take as a Government. Those are issues related to polygamy and so on. Issues of wife inheritance--- You cannot talk about HIV/AIDS and continue to support traditional systems that let men inherit women, even when they are HIV positive. That is unacceptable. Politicians and leaders should be at the fore-front of denouncing such traditions. That is because it is to the advantage of men, even those who are dead, to continue to disadvantage our women. It is the society that set up rules that favour men. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, still on the girl child and domestic labour, our women are not protected. They comprise the majority of domestic servants. The first protection must begin with their education. Those are some of the ideas in this Policy Paper. We must see those people much more as helpers. There are situations, especially in affluent families, where they go to a restaurant with their children and leave the maid with a small child seated at the reception while they enjoy their sumptuous meals. It is a shame to witness that, so many years after Independence. The treatment we mete on our domestic workers, majority of who are women, is a subject that should be debated. We deserve a lot of education on that. We should begin to realise that, as our helpers, those domestic servants deserve not just legal protection, but also understanding and support from those they work for. They need to have education, adequate time for relaxation and ensure that the number of hours they work conform with what has been recommended. So, we must do more than we have done to our domestic servants, a majority of who are women, so that they can support our families and society in general. Finally, there is very little we can do for our women, if we do not empower them economically. Economic empowerment begins with education. We should insist that our women must go to school. We should insist that, even when our women are unlucky to get pregnant while in school, they should not be chased away. Instead, we should give them a chance to come back after delivery and complete school. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in terms of ensuring that we support their greater participation in agriculture, especially because they comprise 70 per cent of the agricultural labour force in the country, we should support them to have micro-credit. That should not be done to only women groups that we use during campaign trails, and give them tokens of Kshs5,000 or Kshs10,000. We should have actual structures and programmes of supporting those women groups to be economically empowered, so that women can feel they can release themselves from the chains of oppressive men. If they are economically independent, they will not take a lot of nonsense which they take from many of us. In terms of dealing with legal impediments that make all that possible, we have to go back to our legal structures that are so oppressive to women, and address them courageously. In supporting our women, we are freeing a lot of potential. If we leave them out, we would be leaving out more than 50 per cent of those who would be contributing to make this country a better place. October 19, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3083 We have got to be fearless and courageous about doing anything that can make that possible. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}