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{
    "id": 486175,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/486175/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 296,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Nyasuna",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 590,
        "legal_name": "Gladys Atieno Nyasuna",
        "slug": "gladys-atieno-nyasuna"
    },
    "content": "inherited in order for the third wife to be inherited; by tradition. These are the circumstances that we are talking about. Nobody should be forced into wife inheritance. Hon. Speaker, talking about damage to property, for example, as domestic violence, I know of circumstances where after a wife disagrees with the husband, she destroys everything in that house to punish the husband. That is malicious damage to property. That is what this Bill is legislating against. Talking of widow cleansing, I have heard some people ask what it is. There are certain outrageous acts that are done to ensure that the widow is clean to move on with life without dying. I want to protect those pure women, who are our mothers, sisters and daughters. Yesterday, hon. Jimmy Angwenyi spoke very passionately against some of these aspects. I know that hon. Angwenyi has a wife he has loved for many years. He has lived for 70 years. This Bill is not for him. We cannot legislate for ourselves. We have daughters whom he loves. This Bill is not for these kinds of circumstances. We are not necessarily legislating for ourselves. We are legislating for those who are in difficult circumstances. Hon. Speaker, I am bit concerned that the Committee has proposed to delete certain matters in Clause 4, particularly a provision regarding a person to whom you were previously married. We know that there is the mantra of “accept and move on”, but that mantra is a fallacy. Many people do not accept, and they do not move on. So, they keep on nagging. After you have already parted ways, they keep on interfering with your life. So, this matter must be addressed in law. When we get to the Committee of the whole House, we will be persuading the Committee that some of the amendments that they have proposed will mutilate this Bill to an extent that in certain circumstance, it may no longer make sense. For example, when we delete Clause 8, which seeks to create shelters for victims of domestic violence, we have to think about alternatives. We cannot accommodate those people in our homes when they are in that situation, because your home will become another place of danger. We know that people run to their sisters’ houses, and their sisters have been accused and even brought into the whole act of domestic violence. We need to have a neutral place, where victims of domestic violence can run to and hide. Hon. Speaker, Clause 5 very well defines family members, so that nobody can claim to be a member of a family when they are not. It also provides for the protection of adopted children and step children. We know what step children go through in many times, both from their adopted mothers and adopted fathers. Deletion of Clause 7 will also be a major loss. I hope that when we get to the Committee of the whole House, we will be able to address a number of these issues. It is very difficult to speak without repetition at this point because many people have already spoken. Everybody speaks on the same issues from different angles and twists. That is what we are going. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}