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{
    "id": 529005,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/529005/?format=api",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this Bill seeks to implement the fundamental rights of this one special category of people, specially recognized under Article 54 of the Constitution. It is trying to implement those rights through a reporting mechanism. In fact, it is the usual United Nations (UN) way of enforcing such rights. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, disability had been treated in very different ways in different times in history in different communities. If you remember, in the old Sparta if you were born with disability, because that was a sporting nation, you had to be killed. Children born with disability were killed in Sparta and in many other communities including my own community. In the old Meru Community, we had no people with disabilities because disability was seen as a curse. Therefore, nobody talked about any child born with disability. The child disappeared. They were spirited off in the forest and they never returned. It clearly shows how far our society has come. This is because up to 2010, the old Constitution did not say anything about disability. I am very happy that Sen. Ong’era and Sen. (Prof.) Anyang’-Nyong’o are here because we worked very hard with them in the Secretariat to ensure that we have this new Constitution. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I think the basic question which the new Constitution asks is whether a disabled person is a person. Once you answer that question in the positive that a disabled person is a human being, then that person is entitled to all the human rights that other human beings are entitled to, except those which might be limited by virtue of the nature of disability. I support this Bill because we are all candidates of disability. You do not know who will be the disabled person tomorrow. You do not know who will be joining the ranks, that group or that category of Kenyans tomorrow. I do not know whether you were in Parliament when the late Dr. Oki Ombaka returned from the United States of America (USA). He had been treated but in the process, he had lost his sight. So, he became blind. When he came and made a speech before us in the National Assembly, it was very moving because he said, “You, people, might see but I can see many things which you cannot see.” He said that he had become more perceptive; that he could see even the unseen things. He thought he had become wiser by going through that process. He asked us not to pity him because he had learnt some new things. He later on started the constitutional process itself with Prof. Yash Pal Ghai and he did a commendable job until the last days of his life. I am giving that example to show that even somebody like Dr. Oki Ombaka, who used to be our student leader at the university with a PhD from Harvard, a very competent and clever person could also become a disabled person in a matter of weeks. Therefore, everyone of us is a candidate and let us not say we are doing this for Sen. Njoroge or other people out there with disabilities. We are also doing it for ourselves because we do not know when that time will come. That time will come for us to say the bell tolls; it could be tolling for you; it could be tolling for Sen. Murungi or for some other person. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the Bill before us seeks to implement Article 54 of the Constitution which clearly states that:- (1) A person with any disability is entitled–– The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}