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{
    "id": 678069,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/678069/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 282,
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    "content": "We hear it from men and every time that they support women, they have daughters and that they have mothers who are women. If that was the truth of the matter, we would not be in the situation we are in. We would not be in a situation where when that Bill went to the National Assembly twice; it was rejected with the second rejection being worse than the first rejection. Those are the same men who had spoken in that same language. That is why we find ourselves in a situation where we want to anchor this in a better way. I am happy it has come in the “upper” House because I find here Senators men and women of repute who will look at this Bill with a very conscience lens and try to achieve what it is that Kenyans have asked for. Madam Temporary Speaker, it is not difficult to do this. If you look at countries like Rwanda, they have attained 64 per cent gender representation with 64 per cent being women. For example, Finland, we have 80 women in a parliament of about 200 members. The interesting thing about Finland is that most of these have been elected. We obviously pick that discourse or argument from that setup into this setup and say; why can they not be elected? We would love to be elected, but we must look at our historical, social and cultural limitations that have been the key to putting us in the situation we are in. So, when we are talking about affirmative action, we are not talking about it because we love it or we want it to last forever, but we are talking about it because it is the one that will catapult us to a point where one would became a reference point where the girls who are interested in joining politics can watch and get interested and come on board. Madam Temporary Speaker, Sen. Wetangula, as he made his contributions, talked about the difficulties that women face. This is how we are. We know of many parliamentary seats that could easily have been won by women and they may have won those seats, but they were not able to be declared the winners. We know of women who have died and somehow the level of violence that is meted on women is most cruel and violent, including getting into the point of hurting children in the name of power. So, when you find women in a situation that they are in, where they are a little bit cautious, there is reason for it. Therefore, every time we have this argument, we must be able to contextualize it in that particular realm so that we understand what it is we are talking about and we do not become skeptical and say women can go. Women can go to fight for these positions, but we need to look at their talents clearly. Madam Temporary Speaker, this amendment Bill is very important because it aims at entrenching that. If we look at the numbers in the National Assembly and the numbers in the Senate, the argument that Sen. Wetangula has put is true. If we have more women elected into these seats, we would have less need to have the women nominated into these seats. Right now, in the National Assembly, 16 women in the constituency were able to get those seats and we hope we will get many more in the future. We have the 47 women county Members of Parliament and we have the five nominated women giving a total of 68 women in the National Assembly. In the Senate, we have a membership of 67: we have 49 men and 18 women, respectively. The shortfall in the Senate is much lower than in the National Assembly. The shortfall in the Senate is about five women. If we have, for example, two nominated Senators – and Sen. Ongoro, you are going for the Senator’s seat and I know a few others who want to be elected to be members of the National Assembly. We pray and hope for 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"
}