Hon Martha Wangari

All parliamentary appearances

Entries 5801 to 5810 of 6328.

• 25 Sep 2019 in National Assembly: Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Please allow me to thank all the Members who have voiced their concerns – those who have supported it and those who have opposed. Their contributions will enrich this Bill. view
• 25 Sep 2019 in National Assembly: The issue of child adoption has, for a long time, been assumed to be of families or people who cannot get children. On the contrary, so many people are adopting children today even when they have other children of their own. view
• 25 Sep 2019 in National Assembly: Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, if we are going to encourage locals to adopt children since we have banned the foreigners, then we must give enough incentives and encouragement to this process of adoption. I must clarify that this is not about just getting a child and staying with him or her in the House. It is about the legal process, which is very tedious, expensive and energy-draining. The lawyers in this House will tell you that. The matter has to go to court for you to have the legal custody of a child. view
• 25 Sep 2019 in National Assembly: That process, as I have explained when I was moving this Bill, starts with an application. After you have filled every form required, you will be assigned a social worker who will scrutinise you to ascertain whether you are able to bring up the child that you intend to adopt. The social worker has to establish your financial status, your societal standing as well as find out 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. view
• 25 Sep 2019 in National Assembly: what your family is about? Do you have other children, and how do they behave? They conduct a proper background survey on you. view
• 25 Sep 2019 in National Assembly: Thirdly, you will be taken for counselling together with your family members to be able to accept another person whom you have not given birth to, to live with for life. You are adopting them to be part of your family. After that, there will be a case committee where they will decide from what they have found from the counsellor’s report and the social worker’s report whether you are fit to be a parent. view
• 25 Sep 2019 in National Assembly: That is not just for foreigners. Even locals have to go through the same process. I know that the Government has placed a ban on the adoption of children by foreigners. This is not a recent development. The ban has been there since 2015. I want to clarify that it is not just foreigners who can be unfit to be parents. Sometimes, we have unfit Kenyans. So, it cannot be a blanket condemnation that since they are foreigners, they will abuse the children that they will adopt. Even Kenyans can do so. It has to be a decision that has ... view
• 25 Sep 2019 in National Assembly: Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the pre-adoption leave becomes crucial at the point where you are placed with that child. The certificate has been given and you are placed with a child. They require you to have a continuous stay with the child for three months. I have lived in Nairobi’s Eastlands. If you live in Umoja - where I used to stay at one point after my university education – and you have a job, you come to town at 8.00 a.m. You have to leave Umoja at 5.00 a.m. or 5.30 a.m. and you get back home at 10.00 ... view
• 25 Sep 2019 in National Assembly: The social worker will come to your house, but she will not find you to see how you will stay with that child because you will be away at work, unlike biological working mothers who have maternity leave. I have listened to Hon. Otiende Amollo. I have heard his reservations, even with Akuku Danger’s example. I also want to clarify that even a woman can get a child yearly, like Akuku Danger’s wives used to. That woman would still get a three-month maternity leave. It does not matter that she got a child the previous year. Such women would still ... view
• 25 Sep 2019 in National Assembly: So, I have picked some of the proposed amendments to what I have proposed. I thank the Members for the Departmental Committee on Labour and Social Welfare, who also scrutinised this Bill and organised for public participation. I know many people came and gave their views. There are also suggestions that three months is a long time. However, Article 53 of the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, does not discriminate against a biological and an adopted child. view