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{
    "id": 811265,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/811265/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 50,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murkomen",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 440,
        "legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
        "slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, I congratulate Sen. Nyamunga for making a very important statement on defilement of our children. There is an erosion of values to the extent that most of our children are in danger from the very people that are expected to protect them. Reports of research, both by Non- Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and government bodies, indicate that the worst defilers are the people expected to protect the children. These are parents, guardians and teachers. In the old days, children were property of the community. Everybody had a responsibility to the children. That is why there is an old adage or saying that it takes a village to bring up a child. It is because of modernization, urbanization and general individualism that has gotten into our people and country that people are pursuing other things and nobody cares to look after the most vulnerable, including the children. There was a report aired on Citizen Television about how children are abducted, sold and trafficked to other countries in the world in the name of adoption. There are vultures particularly in slums like Kibera, Mukuru kwa Njenga and Mathare. There are rich people who have networks there ready to pounce on children that have been born. They steal them even when their mothers are still recovering from child birth and sell them in the name of being abandoned. There is a problem. Sen. Nyamunga has mentioned something important about the role of the police and people who arrest. However, it should go deeper than that. The Children Act should be implemented. Children should be protected from acts of defilement and violence meted out to them by parents and teachers. We need something bigger than that. I challenge Sen. Nyamunga, because it is something she is thinking through, to go further than that. If possible, we should use one of our standing committees or a select committee that will come up with more comprehensive ways of dealing with this matter. They can also come up with mechanisms within which our children can report such acts and spell out the punishment to be meted upon the perpetuators. 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."
}