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{
    "id": 674443,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/674443/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 246,
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    "content": "election of governors. No woman was elected to be governor. Similarly, no woman was elected Senator. I say this with a lot of pain. When the President of the United States of America (USA) was visiting this country, he said that the non-inclusion of women in any body, whether public or private, is like having a football team and half of it are not participating in the game. If you look at the demographics, the women are slightly above 50 percent of the global population. However, these numbers have not translated in terms of political offices or political party offices where this political process starts. We are also lagging behind in the professional world. Looking at the Gallery, I know that young boys and girls have visited this Senate. It is very sad when they hear that no single woman qualified to be a governor, out of the over 50 per cent of us in population. The process of election in this country has been very tough for women. The terrain has been very tricky. I always give an illustration when I talk of gender parity; that if we are watching a match at the Moi International Sports Center, Kasarani, and Sen. Kajwang is six feet tall and I am five feet tall, if there exists one crate for someone to step on, I should get that crate to step on to get to Sen. Kajwang’s height. That is the essence of equity. We need to pull those that are disadvantaged. The Constitution (2010) has been very generous. It was achieved through a negotiated process and very abrasive women, the likes of Phoebe Asiyo and Beth Mugo, who were in the first Kenya Women Parliamentarians Association (KEWOPA), when they were very few. In fact, most of us are sitting in these positions of affirmative action courtesy of other women. It is, therefore, our duty and responsibility as women of this country and as women sitting in Parliament, to ensure that we entrench this in law and come up with this framework as is required of us. If we do not do so, we will be absconding our duty. This has also been reiterated by the President of Kenya when he came before the National Assembly. Even in the Jubilee manifesto women participation in every level has been emphasized. In the different parties they are given some kind of affirmative action in terms of payment of nomination fees. In my own party, United Democratic Front (UDF), we were charging women aspirants 50 percent so that we could get more. It has been a long process and we are not there yet. Eighteen out of 68 is about 26 per cent. We still have not achieved the requirement of Article 81 in terms of ‘not more than two-thirds should be of the same gender.’ We still have a long way to go. Of course, we are doing much better than other democracies, including much bigger and older democracies like the US who have been there for about 200 years. They still look at us as a role model in terms of women participation and affirmative action. This Bill, therefore, aims at making this a reality. Of course, it does not replace the fact that we need to have more women elected. That tells us, as people sitting on affirmative seats, that we have no option but to go out there and fight for these positions. Until we have a level playing ground, we will still need to consider affirmative action or the ‘nominated seats’ as it is, to achieve this parity. This Bill does not intend to give it as a token. In fact, it envisages that all of us will go for election. Many of us even in this House have made a deliberate effort to identify a constituency and run. We must do that 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"
}