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{
    "id": 971237,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/971237/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 327,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13322,
        "legal_name": "John Kiarie Waweru",
        "slug": "john-kiarie-waweru"
    },
    "content": "This is a Bill that seeks to give effect to Article 57 of the Constitution. It goes without saying that the Constitution of Kenya 2010 envisaged a situation where all human rights are taken care of for each and every individual. However, we realise that as people age, their needs become a bit more special. Traditionally, we viewed things differently. In the African set up, there was so much respect given to older persons. In fact, it was considered that the older you get the wiser you were to become thus being a custodian of culture and a custodian of the institutional memory of a community. Being the custodian of the wisdom of the community, the elderly were taken care of. Back then, the social fabric was a bit more intact. What would happen is that there were very good social safety nets for each and every member of the community, from the child to the middle aged people to the old people. Things have really changed since then. We are faced, as a country, by an ism that we have never been able to deal with. This ism is ageism. We are coming to a realisation that ageism is as evil an ism as any other: ageism is evil as tribalism; it is as evil as racism; it is as evil as any other ism you can imagine. It is really growing in this country. We, as a House, that is relatively youthful, in fact I dare say it is the most youthful Parliament our country ever got... We have to be innovative in how we address issues of the elderly. As it has been said here before, age is very transitional. The young person today is not going to be young forever. We who are youthful are not going to be youthful forever. For that reason, I support any effort where we are trying to walk towards protecting the rights not only of the people generally but also of those who need specific care, almost affirmative care, like our old people. I said that by virtue of providing a framework that promotes the rights of the older members of the society as enshrined in the Constitution, this Bill is timely. However, there is more than talking about promoting the dignity of the older people. Even as we legislate, it is very clear in our minds that there are things that we cannot legislate on. Things like morality are things that we will find very hard to legislate on. Even as we are making these laws, we are calling upon ourselves as a society to also look at the soft issues that cannot be penned on paper. I mean those soft issues that cannot be legislated upon. When we seek dignity for older people, we are seeking acceptance from people who have not got to that advanced stage. We are telling them that the elderly people need special care. This is actually a moral calling that cannot be legislated on. This Bill seeks to provide a framework for the registration, establishment, management and service of residential facilities for older members of society. This is a good idea. However, my reservation on this is the whole issue of institutionalising our older people. The fact that you are uprooting an individual and putting them in an institution and then expecting them to operate normally as a human being in itself goes against what we are seeking to do, which is seeking more dignity for our older people. If fact, there is an African saying that goes that: it takes an entire village to bring up a child. I believe that it also takes an entire community to bring up its old people. Even as we go into the nitty-gritty of the establishment of these institutions, we have got to find how the finer policy is going to make sure that guardians who bring the old people into these institutions are not dumping them there. We have an organisation called Kenyan Aged People Require Information, Knowledge & Advancement (KARIKA) in Dagoretti South Constituency. It takes care of our older people without institutionalising them. These older people report to a centre which is in a compound that is actually public land set aside for the older people. They go there to interact with each other. That is where they socialise. We even have younger people coming there to visit the old people. In this centre, they get vocational training which is useful for them as they lead their lives. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}