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{
    "id": 542892,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/542892/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 326,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Mwaura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13129,
        "legal_name": "Isaac Maigua Mwaura",
        "slug": "isaac-mwaura"
    },
    "content": "Nations Security Council resolutions. This is something that needs to be promoted because more often than not, we have had a situation where interventions come from other places other than Africa, when there is civil strife. We have even seen countries like France gloating on how they were able to intervene in countries such as Cote d’Ivoire when there was a tug of war between Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara. This move is commendable because it speaks to the PAP dream of the establishment of a super state. As we continue going forward to consolidate our collective response and working together towards the enhancement of various organs of the AU, it will actually slowly but surely lead us to that great dream where Africa can be one big state that can have respect among the committee of nations. I am also enthusiastic to hear that the resolutions of the AU spoke to issues of disability mainstreaming. I am very glad because, together with other Members of Parliament representing people with disabilities, I have been invited to participate in a special session in May in Johannesburg. We will see to it that the PAP takes cognisance of the fact that disability mainstreaming is a key and integral part in ensuring that Africans with disabilities are actually raised from poverty and depravity. For example, I note that there is the African Peoples Human Rights Charter that is already being developed. I have participated in the development of the optional protocol. I hope that it will be ratified and that countries will actually respond to the various options that are there. However, there is a problem. Sometimes when you try to domesticate international treaties, you ask yourself if there is anything African in them. Because of being schooled in western ways, maybe we need to look at local knowledge to ensure that when we domesticate some of these human rights and humanitarian laws, we really look at how they work best for us. That is something that lacks. It is just a question of taking a document and trying to cascade it down to a language that people would understand. There is something we need to also define – that which comes out in the real discourse of our people. We need to know what is really African so that we do not just adopt everything. For example, the issue of recognition of group and community rights is quite critical. This can be enforced through the formal channels that are being established. I agree that there is a tendency to accede to international laws that are basically emanating from the United Nations. Maybe that is because the AU may not necessarily have distinguished itself with regard to the development of some of these treaties or rather enforcement. One of the key challenges has always been the funding to ensure that the actual implementation of such treaties is done. I want to imagine that states within the African continent would continuously give monies to the AU and regional economic communities and any other initiatives in order to ensure that the objects of such treaties are actualised. I also note a very interesting conversation around youth and employment. One of the greatest challenges that we have been having as a continent is the issue of our young people wanting to migrate to Europe in search of green pastures. Yesterday I watched a very interesting conversation of young people who are trying to cross to Italy through Libya’s Gibraltar yet Europe was actually developed by Africa. You ask yourself why young people are trying to go to Europe to live in not necessarily very good situations. Some of them were even detained in concentration sort of camps for more than a year. There is need to have this kind of awareness that there are innumerable opportunities in The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}