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{
    "id": 97158,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/97158/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 322,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Laboso",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 63,
        "legal_name": "Joyce Cherono Laboso",
        "slug": "joyce-laboso"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, as a Member of that delegation, I also wish to make a few remarks about the conference. I wish to bring to the attention of hon. Members that the IPU is a union that is critical to the advancement of the Members of Parliament or the role they play in world politics. I was particularly impressed during the conference by the diversity of the views that were expressed. I am sure there is no other union where you will find extremely diverse views like in the IPU. I am talking about encounters with groups such as the Palestinians versus the Israelites or the Arab Members of Parliament versus their American counterparts. There were a lot of diversified views where under normal circumstances, you could not have a chance of those Members coming together in a meeting. It was an enriching experience to come across marginalized groups. I know these are issues that we are talking about right now, especially with regard to the proposed Constitution. However, I can assure you that even in the global politics, issues of marginalized groups do come up strongly. During the IPU meeting, the marginalized groups were very vocal. Their issues almost dominated most of the sessions that took place in Addis Ababa. Apart from that, I would also like to mention issues about women that came up during the conference. It was gratifying to realise that there was a women’s agenda in the IPU. A lot of time and effort was spent discussing the issue of adolescent girls. We may not be aware, but there are very many issues and girls who are faced with discrimination and violence. They are generally disadvantaged members of the society. I must say that even though we feel that women are disadvantaged in Kenya, I think there are many more regions which are worse than Kenya. There were many discussions about how to improve the lives of women and girls by investing in their education. We spend a lot of time talking about how we can end violence. These are issues that cut across several regions and countries that were represented in the Conference. We discussed the role of Members of Parliament in ensuring that there are resources that are women and children friendly. There is power of legislation which many a times, we do not realise. Sometimes, we are not aware of the role that we, as legislators, play in the lives of the people that we represent. That was brought to the fore. One of the speakers brought out the fact that all national delegations should as often as possible, make Members of Parliament part of that delegation because they realized that Members of Parliament have power over the lives of people through the power of legislation. I am particularly happy to note that the power of legislation, even as we discuss the proposed Constitution, will be brought out. This is because we are clearly talking about separation of powers between the Judiciary, the Legislature and the Executive. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, one of the speakers, Dr. Ali, talked about the progress that has been made in terms of the disparities between the enrolment and retention of boys and girls in primary schools. At the primary level, there is little disparity between the enrolment and retention of girls almost globally. However, those disparities begin to show as you go upper the ladder to secondary and tertiary institutions. There are many countries, particularly in the Arab world, where those disparities are greater than others. We again spent some time talking about the diversities in the globalised economy and I have mentioned this. We looked at the countdown to 2015 when we should be talking about the MDGs and how various countries have fared on in terms of meeting the MDGs. As a country, we looked at our status and analyzed where we are. This was in terms of MDG I, MDG IV and MDG V. MDG I is about poverty and we wanted to know some of the measures the country has taken to address these issues. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, it was an enriching experience to be in the IPU. Anybody who has not attended an IPU meeting, it is quite different from many meetings because you really get a globalised view and perspective of issues discussed across the countries and continents. I want to give a chance to others to add their voice to this. With those few remarks, I beg to support the Motion."
}