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"id": 950456,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/950456/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 210,
"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
"slug": "moses-wetangula"
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"content": "“Every child has the right–– (a) to a name and nationality from birth; (b) to free and compulsory basic education; (c) to basic nutrition, shelter and health care; (d) to be protected from abuse, neglect, harmful cultural practices, all forms of violence, inhuman treatment and punishment, and hazardous or exploitative labour; (e) to parental care and protection, which includes equal responsibility of the mother and father to provide for the child, whether they are married to each other or not; and (f) not to be detained, except as a measure of last resort, and when detained, to be held – (i) for the shortest appropriate period of time; and (ii) separate from adults and in conditions that take account of the child’s sex and age. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to start where my distinguished nephew, the Senator for Nairobi, left off. Some four years ago, a Governor in the neighborhood of western region collected all street children in his town, put them on a truck and dumped them at Alupe Leprosy Center in Busia. He could as well have dumped them in a market. Leprosy is highly contagious, yet he took children, went and dumped them in a leprosy center! I raised that matter on the Floor of this House, and the distinguished Senator for Elgeyo Marakwet remembers this. The aim of this exercise was to clear the town of urchins and their nuisance so that the town could look good. Despite that being a criminal offence, I do not believe this Governor was a “small person” like us to record a statement with the police. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in the first year, yet another criminal governor collected children from the streets of Nakuru Town and dumped them in a forest full of harmful wildlife. As we have been told, some of them have not been found to date; while some of those that were dumped in Alupe became ill and died. In another incident, the same governor collected all hawkers –who are mostly young people – put them in trucks and dumped them in Kitale Town. He then called his colleague and told him that he has offloaded his nuisance to his town. How can a Kenyan call other Kenyans a nuisance? These are things happening in the 21st Century Kenya, close to 60 years after Independence. Mr. Speaker, Sir, when you look at our level of development today, I would like to tell my distinguished nephew that there is absolutely no economic or legal justification for us to have borstal and (or) children’s homes. Our economy is big, we have people who have more than they need, and the Constitution requires us to provide free and compulsory education. In the African set up, where you and I come from, we pay school fees for hundreds of children from the care and love of their parents. You do not have to take children and hoard them in a home to help them. Of course, we have special cases in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) of Northern Kenya, where parents move from place to place with their animals looking for pasture. The Government is obligated to set up boarding schools to accommodate these children. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you look at many websites of people and institutions that run these children’s homes, they are simply businesses, just like the Senator for Nairobi has said; they are profiteers. They are people armed with a Bible and a cross, running all over The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}