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{
    "id": 587571,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/587571/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 344,
    "type": "other",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "sense of pride in looking after their aging parents. You invite your father or mother to come and stay with you. Even if they do not stay with you in the rural areas where 80 per cent of Kenyans live, we live in very closed communities. Even if your father is widowed, you will find that his son invites a mzee to his house every evening to have dinner with the family in order to feel appreciated, loved and part of the family and society. After that, he walks back to his house to go and sleep. However, if we want to ostracize, as it were, our aging population and dot every county and village with homes to put old people, then we are losing direction as a society. We have gotten it all wrong. There are exceptional cases like orphans. I am sure in one or two places where we come from, you will find a school dedicated to orphans, but nobody says every orphan must be taken to that school. I can have orphaned children of my father, brother or sister, whom I adopt, live with and bring them up as part of my family. That is how Africa has grown and lived. Clause 13 of the Bill says: “Prohibition of abuse of senior citizens.” Abusing anybody is a crime. So, you do not even need to put it in any law now, that abusing senior citizens physically is a crime. Even if you abuse or molest your own child, wife or neighbour however old or young, it is a crime. So, it does not add value to our penal system to say that you prohibit abuse of senior citizens. In fact, we must and we know that we have to uphold the right to dignity, and live in good conditions as enshrined in the Constitution. I urge the distinguished Senator to reconsider this Bill because when it comes to voting, we will vote it down. We cannot start doing things that reduce and not add value to our society. Let me give you an example. There are old people who are now aging out and they went to the World War in Burma, India, South Africa and Tanganyika as it was then was called. They carry so much wisdom. I was listening to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and an old man in Zambia narrated how they were taken to World War II. The Japanese had a very distinguished record of cruelty at that time and everybody was scared of them. So, this"
}