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"id": 251046,
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"speaker_name": "Mrs. Mugo",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Education",
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"legal_name": "Beth Wambui Mugo",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to support and contribute to this Bill, which I strongly support. As other hon. Members have said, the time to enact this Bill has truly come. I do not think we can afford to leave it in abeyance even for a little while. Let me begin by congratulating the Mover of this Bill, Ms. Ndung'u, and the Seconder, Mr. M. Kilonzo, for bringing real issues to show why this Bill is necessary at this time. I would also like to thank all those hon. Members who have supported it and those who have not supported it but have pointed out the areas they feel should be worked on a little bit. However, I want to appeal to those hon. Members to bring amendments because this Bill belongs to the House now. We can amend as long as we keep the spirit of the Bill intact. I do not believe there is need to send it back to the relevant Departmental Committee because we have to look for time again to debate it. We have done that in the past. We have brought amendments to a Bill and passed it. If we send this Bill back or not pass it, we will be judged harshly by the world. I do not think in the history of Kenya, the short time I can remember, there has been a time when this crime has been committed as much as today. According to Press reports, the latest victim was a six-month old baby and a great- grandmother of 96. This is completely unheard of. Whereas I do not even believe animals behave like that, human beings have started not to know their young ones or aged people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as Mr. Kosgey said when he was the Minister for Education, Science and Technology, we have heard similar cases which are horrifying where the people who are entrusted with the girls are the ones who molest them sometimes. There is a case of a principal who molested two or three girls. When they got pregnant, he asked them to meet him down at the cliff in the pretext that he would take the children to an uncle or aunt to look after them. However, he killed those babies. He threw them down the cliff. He went back and did the same with other girls. If we had adequate law on rape and sexual harassment as one hon. Member wanted to raise here, I think these people would have been deterred. Such a headteacher abuses the very job he has been given; to look after young ones. We must enact this law to deter potential rapists. As it is now, they are not concerned whether there is a law or not. I know that culture has been cited now and again in this House against this Bill. I would like to thank the hon. Attorney-General for making it quite clear that our cultures never discriminated and never harassed women. This is a new phenomenon of the men and women of today because even women harass men sometimes. We should and must not talk ill of our culture. Every time we want to do something, we cover it up with culture. It is absolutely not true. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, sexual harassment is part of rape or penetration as many hon. Members have put it. They have been saying: \"Let us pass that little thing about penetration and leave all the other things because we will interfere with courtship or normal things of life.\" This is not true! I want to put it as one hon. Member put it. Mr. Wetangula told us last week that if his daughter went to the Carnivore with Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o's son and the boy touched this girl and then he was put in, Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o would not be happy. I want to put it to him this way: How would Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o feel if his daughter was touched on her May 2, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 837 private parts or breast by a boy just carelessly bringing down her dignity? That is interfering with her human rights! It is the girl's human rights also to enjoy life without being harassed by some imbalanced young man. I am a mother of boys as well - I have a son and daughters. Just like these hon. Members who are worried about their sons - I want to believe that they are also fathers of girls. It is our responsibility, as this House, to act maturely and protect both boys and girls. I think this is what this Bill has tried to do. Where maybe the language used is not appropriate, or maybe what has been said seems to suggest that one side is being oppressed, it should be brought here for amendment. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Clause 23, which has been referred to by many other contributors of this debate says: \"Any person who undertakes any unlawful, unsolicited and unwelcome sexual advances or requests for sexual favours is guilty of the offence of sexual harassment.\" I want to agree that, maybe, partly, that needs a bit of re-wording, especially if the request is made to a mature woman. That cannot be sexual harassment. However, when it is a request by a teacher to a student, who cannot say no, or by an employer to an employee who wants to keep her job and is scared that she will lose it, that is taking advantage of someone who is not your equal. You should make your sexual advances to your equal; somebody who can either say no or yes because she wants to, and not because she has been forced by circumstances. I am sure an amendment can be brought to put that clause in the right perspective. We have seen people with some mental disability, who cannot make decisions of life because of their mental capacity, getting babies. How do they get babies? Is it from real men or from people who are mentally disturbed? I believe this Bill, which is well thought out, because sexual harassment is part of rape and makes a woman feel belittled, can be corrected or re- written where need be. However, we should pass the Bill. There are also people who commit offences and go to court. I believe our judges are well balanced and can tell through the evidence given, who is lying and who is telling the truth. By the way, do not make this a woman's Bill. This is not just a woman's Bill. It affects you directly, whether you are a man or a woman. We have heard of men who are raped in toilets. Your son, wife, granddaughter, grandmother, daughter and baby are all vulnerable. I am glad to hear an hon. Member say that he would shoot someone if he found him sexually harassing his daughter. That shows some commitment. It would be a sad thing if we threw out this Bill because of some small issues. That is why we felt very unhappy on the first day of debate of the Bill, and horrified by the attitude of some hon. men Members, who treated the issue as if it were a big joke. That is also what happens when women go to report rape cases in police stations and are laughed at. When a raped child is laughed at, she or he cannot even say what really happened and how they felt. To see hon. Members of this House applaud and joke about this Bill left women hon. Members sad. We wondered how we can applaud such a thing. How can we applaud an hon. Member who said that when an African woman says \"no\", she means \"yes\"? That is to say that this Bill is not necessary because rape happens when one goes against what a woman has not consented. If you assume that a woman meant \"yes\" when she said \"no\", that makes the Bill null and void and we should not even discuss it. For an hon. Member to say that, I wonder what sort of women he associates with. That was a big shame. I want to call upon our hon. Members to know that we respect them and we need them to respect us because we are equal as hon. Members in this House. If you speak ill of women, you are speaking ill about us because we are women hon. Members in this House. A country that cannot respect its women is not a good country at all because women are the mothers of any nation. Can you imagine if a young boy listened to you, as his father and as an hon. Member, speaking like that and believed what you were saying? No wonder our boys can rape 96-year-old women or women 838 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 2, 2006 the age of their mothers. When you talk like that, you are telling them that women do not matter. I hope that our utterances in this House do not serve to make this nation worse than it is today. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, sexual harassment happens in prisons too. We have had cases of warders intimidating prisoners and raping them. Can you imagine a prisoner gathering enough courage to say no to a warder? Even if they were to say no, they would still be raped. Women prisoners are intimidated and have no chance to cry because they are in prison. Children at home, schools and in many other places are also raped because rape happens with male relatives, a father or an uncle. It may take a long time for a mother to know what has been happening, allowing a man in the house to turn against her child. We must pass rules that will safeguard such children. That is why we are legislators. When we legislate, we must take care of such issues. Women and children should be confident enough to come out and report. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in one case, some university students came to us and said they were being harassed. They said that their don wanted some sexual favours so as to give them good grades. We tried to get the girls to complain officially so that we could help them. However, they were scared and said that if we did it, they would never graduate. They also feared that nobody would listen to them and that they would be laughed at. We have also heard some rape cases being linked to this House. If we do not pass this Bill, we will be sending a bad message out there; that, we are trying to protect ourselves."
}