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{
    "id": 32221,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/32221/?format=api",
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    "content": "major concerns raised by Kenyans in their struggle for a new constitutional dispensation. In fact, social justice suggests a notion of a positive effort to achieve an equitable system of governance and society that affords everyone access to basic goods and services necessary for essential livelihoods. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the word “justice” in itself suggests that the objective must be the removal or reduction of inequality in the society. Over the years, the governance and economic systems have excluded a large proportion of the people of Kenya. This is reflected in the high levels of poverty, now estimated at over 60 per cent of the total population. The worst hit has been women, people with disabilities and minority communities. It is these concerns that the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 seeks to address through affirmative action and other interventions including the rationalization of the power and decision making structure of the Kenyan society to be as inclusive as possible. There is little dispute that women issues have continued to occupy a prominent place in the fight for gender parity. The issues range from the fact that women hold less than 10 per cent of the seats in Parliament due to discrimination. They face discrimination in inheritance, domestic and general sexual violence and low enrolment in schools. With this state of affairs, the provisions in the Constitution clearly setting out women’s rights could not have come at a better time. Women’s clamour for fair treatment has been so clearly expressed and the sense of past injustice is so great that it is inconceivable for anyone with a sense of justice to just make any attempt to negate the same. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the principle of equality of men and women was insisted on as a basic requirement for the enjoyment of rights. Women rightly and with sufficient justification, insisted on the entrenchment of women’s rights in the Bill of Rights. In entrenching these rights, we were speaking to the abolition of discrimination with regard to marriage, divorce, burial, inheritance, personal laws, among others, including the right to participate in political and social life."
}