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{
    "id": 799335,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/799335/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 240,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "heard that Rwanda is at 64 per cent and, therefore, we are not doing well. When you look at the appointments for the Cabinet, how many women are there? We need to have more women in leadership positions. Even in our own small setup of our committees, how many women do we have heading committees of this House? Those are some of the small things that ensure that women take their space. So, as a country, we are not doing well. What happened to the Bill on the two-thirds gender rule and where did it go? We keep shifting goals. We said that it should be done gradually but we are not doing much in terms of how to achieve the empowerment of women. If we are to empower women, then we should appreciate that empowering women is empowering the entire society. I am particularly excited about the Girl2Leader Initiative which was talked about in the conference. Girls or women can lead the whole of this world and we need to campaign for them. It is my appeal to this House and especially Members of Kenya Woman Parliamentarians Association (KEWOPA) and the Kenya Women Senators Association (KEWOSA) to take advantage of the Girl2Leader Initiative. Is it enough for us just to attend the forum and come here and say what was launched? What are we going to do about it to implement that particular aspect of the forum? We have a challenge as women leaders. We need to come out and in some way and start implementing the Girl2Leader Campaign so that we are also part of the world as we bring women to leadership. My challenge is on KEWOPA and KEWOSA but I know this House supports their establishments. Probably we will be reaching out to some partners to help us realise the objectives of this initiative. It also came out in the discussion in this forum that a survey was done in 170 countries by the World Bank to identify the gaps in our own laws that restrict women empowerment especially in business. They are saying that the more you have restrictions to empowerment of women the more you have lower levels of capacity building in terms of leadership. So, we end up having low numbers of women in leadership because in the first place our laws are so restrictive. Since the World Bank did a survey in 170 countries and they have identified gaps, it is time we checked for those gaps. I will still reach out to KEWOPA and KEWOSA Members in this House. Those gaps having been identified, we need to know if we have them as a country. If they are there, could we amend our laws to be friendly to empowerment of women? They said where they have done the surveys, the more the restrictions, the more the number of dropouts in schools. The more the dropouts from school the less we have women in leadership. It is a chain. If you have restrictions, then you will have more dropouts. You will also have more deaths because mothers are not healthy and you end up having an unhealthy country as far as the issue of women leadership is concerned. It will be good to look out for the restrictions from these particular recommendations. Finally, a number of recommendations were made and it will be good for them to be picked out. We will ask the Senate Committee on Justice, Legal Affairs and Human Rights to draft amendments in our laws when need arises and implement the Girl2Leader Campaign which we should start through KEWOPA. There is also need to create more linkages and possibly launch a Kenyan Chapter on this particular forum because that is a recommendation. 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"
}