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"speaker_name": "Mr. Lesrima",
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"legal_name": "Simon Saimanga Lesirma",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this policy paper. I am proud to do so because in my house, I have women and men, including myself. So, I have an interest from that point of view. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, women constitute 51 per cent of the population of Kenya and yet, in this country, like most African countries, we do not give women opportunities. But it is not just Africa. I understand that even in Europe--- I visited a country called Sweden and, under their Constitution, out of 22 Cabinet Members, 11 are women. The Constitution decrees that. The reason is that the male always want to have the upper hand. I also realised that, in those advanced countries, although the Constitution provides for gender equality, the men are still ahead of the women in terms of occupying management positions. So, those are the challenges that other countries have faced, but they have adopted affirmative action. You can legislate affirmative action. But you can do it without legislation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the contribution of women in this country is very well known. Women are very active in the agricultural sector. In our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics, their contribution is not quantified. Women are very active in economic activities, even at very small micro-levels. Unfortunately, the Micro-Finance Bill - and I am glad the Minister for Finance is here--- It is necessary to bring on board the Micro-Finance Bill. Women all over the country have their merry-go-round activities. They seem to do better than men at all levels - whether in the villages or cities like Nairobi. But there is no legislation to govern those activities. There is a lot of money which circulates among women. We need to encourage the passing of this Bill. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to talk about a few issues. I know gender refers to both males and females. However, it is, obviously women who are at a disadvantage. I come from a pastoralist area where there is a lot of conflict. More often than not, it is women who suffer the brunt of the conflict, whether it is through activities of cattle rustling or any other. It is women who are affected when their children go to war and get killed. In most times, their men are always absent. In areas where there are evictions going on such as Laikipia, where pastoralist communities are given five minutes to get out of an area, it is women who carry babies, drive their livestock away, and carry their household items. If you drive along the Rumuruti-Maralal Road, you will see women carrying personal effects and their babies at the same time. You will see how much they suffer, much more than men. I am happy that Section 5.9 of this Policy Paper, provides for a special consideration to discuss the question of peace, security and conflict resolution. It is important to recognise that 3090 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 19, 2006 women require to be accommodated in peace committees to resolve conflicts in pastoralist areas. I have just come back from Naivasha where we were solving conflict between the Pokots and the Samburus which has been raging for the past seven months. I am happy to report that the mediator in the talks was, in fact, a woman. She did an extremely wonderful job. I was told that, that was the first time she handled a job of resolving conflict between pastoralist communities. She was able to bring us together men, from both communities. We listened to her and agreed to come together to end the conflict. That was done by a woman. Some of the traditional biases against women can be overcome. However, that can be achieved only if we increase education opportunities for women. We know that our women in pastoralist areas suffer all sorts of indignities including Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and payment of excessive dowry, which increases the conflict in the areas. In some communities, dowry is extremely high, ranging from 60 camels upwards. In other communities, it could be 50 cows while in my community, it is between six to eight cows. The experience we have is that girls who spend most of their time in school are not subjected to FGM and to the dowry issues because the more they stay in school, the more they are away from those situations. We need to do much more in terms of affirmative action in education, particularly in areas which are vast and where often, it is the boy who is sent to school and the girl drops out because she has to be married off. More investments need to be put in primary and secondary boarding schools. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on health, research shows that it is girls aged between 15 and 19 years old who suffer in large proportion the effects of HIV/AIDS compared to boys. In terms of education, the more a girl is educated the less vulnerable she is to HIV/AIDS infections. I am glad that this Paper also talks about the HIV/AIDS. This is something that should be discussed. Reproductive health services is another important area that this document refers to. However, we also need to improve infrastructure. It is not just adequate to put up health centres and maternity wards in the countryside. It is also important to improve the road network. This is because many women suffer on their way to health centres. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, about political participation, soon we will go into Maendeleo ya Wanawake elections. I appeal to men not to interfere with those elections. Let the women do their elections without interference from men. It is sad to report that opportunities for women in the Civil Service in this country are not equal to those of men. It is very sad to report that in 1996 we had three Deputy Vice-Chancellors at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi University and Kikuyu Campus. Ten years later, all those positions were occupied by men. It is not clear why men should dominate university positions when we have capable women in our universities. I appeal to the Government to, at least, take affirmative action in appointing women to those positions instead of waiting for the one-third clause in the draft Constitutions. It is not clear whether that Constitution will be adopted in the next three years. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, finally, it is good to consider the boy child. The boys in certain areas of Kenya will soon be disadvantaged. I know that the population of girls in secondary schools in Central Province is higher than that of boys. In certain areas of Rift Valley Province, especially, Marakwet District, there were more girls in secondary schools than boys ten years ago. This imbalance will create problems for boys in future. We may reach a situation where we will talk about marginalization of men if we do not take care of that situation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support this very good Sessional Paper."
}