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{
"id": 5983,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/5983/?format=api",
"text_counter": 496,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mrs. Odhiambo-Mabona",
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"speaker": {
"id": 376,
"legal_name": "Millie Grace Akoth Odhiambo Mabona",
"slug": "millie-odhiambo-mabona"
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"content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. I want to laud hon. Wamalwa for bringing this notable amendment. I want to indicate that he has by this amendment given life to Article 227 of the Constitution. I am a human rights defender and this is one of the areas where we are implementing the human rights based approach. I am saying that because it looks at the marginalized and excluded in the society. As hon. Wamalwa has indicated, the youth form the majority of the population of this country and they are the ones who do not have access to resources and services in this country. That is why when you look at the Constitution, it acknowledges that and in very many areas, tries to redress this. Indeed, the Constitution is very revolutionary and I do not know whether the Attorney-General knows that. I would want to ask him as the advisor of the Government to inform the Government that it needs to pull up its socks because the youth and the women of this country are going to get their fair share. There are many principles that we put in this Constitution and I have heard many people erroneously saying that principles are not alive and that principles cannot be put into effect. If that is the case, then why were we putting them in the Constitution? We could not have run out of things to be writing. I do not think we only wanted a voluminous document. Really, many people wanted a small document. So, for any word to have gone into this document, there was an import and a reason. I want to go to the preamble, the sixth paragraph that starts with “recognizing the aspirations of all Kenyans for a Government based on the essential values of human dignity, rights, equality, freedom and social justice”. The Government must start to interrogate what social justice means. It means inclusion of the youth, the marginalized and the women. We have said we adopt an Act and give this Constitution to ourselves and to our future generations. Who are our future generations? I consider myself young, but I am not part of the future generation. The future generation is those behind me. We must be giving them a country that they are proud of, where they are not poor and where they can have decent meals three times in a day. I want to also refer to Article 6(3) of the Constitution that says:- ‘‘The national State organs shall ensure reasonable access to its services in all parts of the Republic’’. The equity and equality that we are talking to, first goes regionally and then to categories of groupings. I speak to this principle all the time I stand here. I want to give an example. When I was a human rights activist in the real sense, running in the streets, one time I met the former Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Mr. Kivuitu, when he was still very exalted. He found me in a T-shirt jumping outside the High Court when we were agitating for a new Constitution. I used to be with him in one of the electoral petition courts when it was one court as a very young girl. He told me: “Young girl, it does not matter how long you agitate for reforms in this country and how hard you try, the Constitution will not come because I have been here and I have seen the way things go”. I am happy that today, I can stand here to prove him wrong. I said then that it does not matter even if I only manage to scratch the wall and a little bit of the dust comes out because it will be contributing towards change. The fact that we have the Constitution is testimony to that. This initiative by hon. Wamalwa is another testimony to the great changes that we are going to see. I do not know if we actually understand the import of what we are doing and what hon. Wamalwa is doing. It means that every time there is procurement in this country, 25 per cent must go to the youth. This is one of the ways we must deal with the issue of youth unemployment. We have so many youths who are jobless. We have so many young people who have been forced to turn into crime as a matter of survival. Nobody wants to go into crime because it is fashionable because it is not. It is risky and many young people lose their lives in the process of engaging in crimes. But when young people get alternatives, then they are able to engage meaningfully and to change their lifestyles and, therefore, they do not need to be engaged in crime. The only thing that I want to encourage hon. Wamalwa to do is that if you read the wording of the Constitution, it also includes women. So, I am going to move an amendment to include women because those of us who agitated for the inclusion of this, were thinking of the young people, women, minorities and persons with disabilities. I would want to then say women, but put the amendment in such a way as part of the youth and women, there will be those of them that are marginalized and those of them who are persons with disabilities, so that we are talking about 50 per cent, but it will be 50 per cent that will include the women, the youth, persons with disabilities and the marginalized. If you look at Article 10(1) of the Constitution, which talks about national values and principles of the Constitution, it says:- “The national values and principles of governance in this Article bind all State organs, State officers, public officers and all persons whenever any of them applies or interprets this Constitution.” Then I will go to (c) which says:-"
}