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{
    "id": 251041,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/251041/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 250,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Nyachae",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Roads and Public Works",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 342,
        "legal_name": "Simeon Nyachae",
        "slug": "simeon-nyachae"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Mr. Mwenje needs to know that there is something called extreme provocation. In this particular case, it is extreme provocation. It is not for this House to decide how I will react. I am only informing this House. I become so emotional when the issue of rape comes up. I believe rapists should not be in our society. Majority of hon. Members in this House have relatives, daughters and wives, surely, we cannot accept this to go on forever. We must stop it. Here we are being asked to provide a method of dealing with these kind of people and we are behaving as if we are objecting this Bill. When we are in this House, we think the public is not forming an opinion about us. The opinion being formed out there is that hon. Members of Parliament are opposing the Bill because they are accepting rape and sexual harassment as a way of life in this country. That is the simple conclusion people out there are drawing. Are we really condoning it? We are not and we cannot. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me tell my colleagues here that they should forget about other girls or persons being raped. The trend is such that our own wives are at risk of being raped. How shall we feel if our wives are raped? If you are not going to be happy about your wife going out with another man, then, what about when she is raped? How will you feel about it? I think we must agree to pass this Bill. In my view, this country, and this House, should be unanimous in passing this Bill. Over the years I have been in this House and I think there are certain issues that we can deal with unanimously. This Bill is one of them. We should not be lecturing one another about it. Rape is an issue no community can accept. The Attorney-General gave quite a number of examples on how various communities dealt with rapists in the past. It is a fact that there is no community which tolerates rape. Even the animal community does not accept it. Have you seen bulls fighting over a cow? No bull allows another bull to touch its mate. You are trying to say that anyone can touch a woman in any manner he wants. This is wrong. The people who are doing these things are not normal. We should not accept it. In fact, all normal people know how to talk to a lady and a lady knows how to talk to a man. There should be no force in sex matter and that is how we have survived over the years. At my age now, when I have retired from that kind of thing, I can still talk nicely and convince a young girl without harassing her. To engage in rape is animalish. Rapists behave like beasts. We should not allow rape or sexual harassment to continue. Finally, my request is that we pass this Bill. We can remove the minor issues raised by hon. Members. After listening to what hon. Members have said about this Bill, I realise that there are some minor bad things here and there. Let us remove those minor things and pass this Bill without going round in circles. Let us not deal with these minor issues now. Let us deal with them separately and allow this Bill to go through. With those few remarks, I say let us not waste time in passing this Bill."
}