Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 648099,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/648099/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 284,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) F.I. Ali",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13152,
        "legal_name": "Fatuma Ibrahim Ali",
        "slug": "fatuma-ibrahim-ali"
    },
    "content": "practice and committed democracies create special arrangements to boost the leadership of women. The drafters and people who agitated for this Constitution pursued the line of increasing the positions of women in leadership and, in particular, in politics. I request our male and female Members of Parliament (MPs) to support this Bill so as to increase the voice of women through contributions and the focus of women in this Parliament in the next election. This Bill is very crucial in terms of securing representation of both men and women because we are only looking at the current scenario where men are almost 80 per cent of the membership of the two Houses and women are about 20 per cent. This country needs to move forward in a progressive way by increasing quality debates and contributions from both male and female legislators, so that they are at par in terms of their role in building this nation. I urge our male Members to support this Bill so that we enact a law that fulfills the requirement of our Constitution in terms of securing the two-thirds gender representation in both Houses. If this does not happen, there will be serious challenges in this House in terms of meeting the constitutional requirement. This country is in the global picture for good practices and not for bad practices, where they practise authoritarian leadership. Many countries want to learn best practices from us. I strongly feel that this country is at the right moment to bring legislation that will enhance the two-thirds gender representation in this country. Currently, 80 per cent of the Members of both Houses are male. Maybe, in the next 20 years, there might be 80 per cent of women in this House. It is possible and there will be need to reverse some of the practices which men do not see happening now. We think that women have been given the same platform as men. The reality on the ground is that of a society which is patriarchal and with strong entrenched cultural practices that do not recognize the talent and capacity of great women. At times, the qualities they look for in leaders can be found in women. However, because of socialization and traditions, sometimes we tend to have more preference for male members of the community to be given leadership. At times, girls are better trained and have better capacity. But the society discriminates against them and prefers men to take up leadership even when it is evident they do not have the capacity compared to women."
}