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{
    "id": 940673,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/940673/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 305,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jr.",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13156,
        "legal_name": "Mutula Kilonzo Jnr",
        "slug": "mutula-kilonzo-jnr"
    },
    "content": "insisting that we should have a crèche in Parliament, what happens when we insist that a child who has a child must go with that child to school? What happens when the lessons are going on? Is the child supposed to remain in class, sleep in class and change diapers in class? Should we not have a facility that would take care of these children when they are in school? This is because whereas we insist that we want to separate them because the concept of your Bill is accepting the principle that you are going to separate the teenage mother with her child --- That is what the Bill seeks to do and, therefore, the child is separated from the mother. I want to deduce the concept by Sen. Kwamboka that we have found in our prisons, which has bothered me for so long. A prisoner - we saw this in Kitui - is allowed to have their child until the child is four years old. After that, the child is separated from the mother. What happens to that child? Who is supposed to take care of that child? Could you, please, introduce this concept to those children from prison facilities? We found so many in Kitui. If you go to Lang’ata Womens’ Prison, the last time I was there, there were 60 of them who upon attaining the age of four years would be separated from their mothers. I am not sure what sort of country this is, but here we are. In reality, somebody would say: “The ground is different.” Indeed, it is. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the psychology of these children must be taken care of. The same applies - and maybe Sen. Kwamboka will think about it - because a child who is in child care is a child until they attain the age of 18 years. I was in Shikusa Prison, an institution in the county of the good gentleman, the Senate Deputy Minority Leader. There were 400 underage boys in Kakamega serving prison terms. One boy told us that he was violated and sodomised in police cells while awaiting the determination of his case because he could not be taken to a prison facility until his case was determined. That is the boy. When we are contemplating the parents, there are still some other cases of people who do not then become parents. These also include the ones who throw away their children or, like the ones I mentioned; that their child dies and they do not become parents, and that person has been victimised. I would like a general clause about the protection of children in these facilities because it is a concern for me. This is so that we do not categorise, discriminate and segment these to only those parents who have given birth as teenagers because in the Constitution it does not distinguish. It talks about child care and so, they are many. We must insist as a principle that the children of Kenya, even those that we have found to have in a way or the other gone astray in terms of our law and our morals, are treated well."
}