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{
"id": 940666,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/940666/?format=api",
"text_counter": 298,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Kwamboka",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 9246,
"legal_name": "Beatrice Kwamboka Makori",
"slug": "beatrice-kwamboka-makori"
},
"content": "imposes an obligation on the national Government and county governments to put mechanisms in place and establish programmes to ensure that not only is this right realized in relation to child parents, but also ensure that the rising cases of child pregnancies and the dropping out of school by the child parents is curbed. In addition, Clause 23 of the Bill imposes an obligation on the county governments to establish care centres for child parents and sets out standards that a county government or any other person who intends to establish a care centre is required to meet. The Bill empowers the county government to provide a county specific framework for the registration, licensing, monitoring and inspection of the care centres. The Bill shall be amended to harmonize in the provisions of the Basic Education Act 2013, The Children Act 2001 and the National Guidelines for the Alternative Family Care of children as suggested by the various stakeholders who appeared before the Standing Committee on Labor and Social Welfare during public participation. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, according to the analysis of 2018, the following is an illustration from a selected number of counties to show a picture of teenage or child pregnancy between 15 to 19 years in the country. Homa Bay County had 33.3 per cent, Nyamira County, 27 per cent; West Pokot, 29 per cent; Tana River, 28 per cent; Nairobi City County, 18 per cent; and, Murang’a County, 6 per cent. Kilifi County had 13,624 girls aged between 15 to 19 years and additional 290 girls aged between 10 to 14 years pregnant. Kitui County had 110 girls who sat for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) Examination while pregnant. In Narok County, 60 girls dropped out of school, while 31 girls failed to sit for their examinations. According to a report by the United Nations Population Fund, a total of 378,400 girls aged 10-19 years got pregnant between June, 2016 and July, 2017. A total of 28,932 girls aged between 10 to 14 years got pregnant, while 349,465 girls were 15 to 19 years. That is very alarming. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, if you look at the causes of these teenage pregnancies, it is not the wish of these children to become pregnant. One of the reasons may be lack of proper sex education. If you go to the syllabus of the primary schools on the reproduction health, that topic should be widened enough for these children to understand the causes of early teenage pregnancies. Other causes include telephones and internet. Nowadays, every child including my child who is three years old, is in the internet. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, some of these girls are being raped and they become pregnant. That does not mean that they cannot continue with their education. Nonetheless, some of these causes come along with broken families. Those challenges will make that child become unstable to stay in that family and start going out. Once they get pregnant, they have nowhere to run to. The Government has to do something about these children. Abuse of alcohol and drugs is affecting our children all over the country. This child pregnancy affects all the counties in this country."
}