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{
    "id": 702645,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/702645/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 192,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Shebesh",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 377,
        "legal_name": "Rachel Wambui Shebesh",
        "slug": "rachel-shebesh"
    },
    "content": "I respect the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. I also respect the Chair of the Committee. However, with all due respect, but most of the Members of the Committee are lawyers and they know that you cannot blindly use the word “progressive” and say that you have legislated. It is not fair. It is a smack on women’s faces because you think we do not understand. There is nothing a woman hates more than being taken for a fool. I keep saying that the women in this Parliament, whether elected or nominated, are not clowns. We did not come here by mistake. We are on an equal footing with our male colleagues. Talking about issues that affect women, we have been through hell. In order to get the 47 County Women Representatives seats in the last Parliament, we went through hell. With all due respect to this Parliament, they are even better. The way the male Members are talking about this issue is much better than what we experienced when we were pushing the agenda for the 47 County Women Representatives. Many of us cried tears because of the words that came from the mouths of our colleagues. What does progressive mean? This reminds me of an attempt, in the last Parliament, to block the appointment of some woman nominees to a State office because they lacked “passion”, a word you do not even know how to define. I wish somebody could define for me the word “progressive”. My understanding of “progressive” in relation to this Bill is that “I am not interested in doing it and I do not intend to do it. In fact, I am looking for a way of killing it.” That represents the voice of everybody who is in this plenary. It is unfair for the Committee to put us in the situation we are today. If the House decides, they can pass it. If this House were to pass it, it would have taken back the gains made by the women movement spearheaded by the likes of Phoebe Asiyo, Julia Ojiambo, Nyiva Mwendwa and Ziporah Kitony. You would have taken us back. As women in the 11th Parliament, we would be held to account for letting down the course of women in this country. I am begging this House to stand with us. We have been ridiculed. There is no name we have not been called, but we still fight and come back to this House. If a Committee of this House can bring a Bill to “kill” the women’s movement and water down the gains that the women of this country have made, as the 11th Parliament, we are culpable for short-changing the women of this country. Since you have heard other women speak here, I would rather we find a compromise. As a House, we can find a compromise. As a woman, if you tell me that you want to give me my rights progressively, it is like telling me that you want to love me progressively."
}