6 Nov 2019 in Senate:
Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, for giving me this chance to support this Bill by Sen. Kwamboka who is also the Deputy Minority Whip. This is a very important Bill, particularly because it involves a population in Kenya that is more than half. 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.
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6 Nov 2019 in Senate:
I think with the just concluded census results, we realised that the number of females is very high and, in any case, I am sure in that population, there are very many girls. In this case, we are likely to encounter challenges in terms of pregnancies. I want to support this Bill more importantly because of the fact that it affects girls when it comes to issues of access to education and health, while they are pregnant and how the baby is supposed to be cared for. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, our major challenge came last year when candidates were ...
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6 Nov 2019 in Senate:
Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, there has been a challenge regarding the implementation of this policy. I have been in schools for a long time and I have realised that this policy has not worked to the expectation, more importantly, because of the fact that nobody has followed it to the letter. In any case, many of these girls who get pregnant maybe are in the villages from poor households and nobody will even be able to identify them and inform the authorities so that they are brought back on board.
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6 Nov 2019 in Senate:
There was a time when all school principals were asked to be identifying and notifying the Ministry of Education about girls who get pregnant so that the chiefs and assistant chiefs are able to follow up.
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6 Nov 2019 in Senate:
The major challenge is the issue of stigma, ridicule and cultural practices. In many cultures once a girl getspregnant, I think they would feel like even killing that child in the first place. In some cases they even want to go and hide that child. They would also want that girl to be married off even when they are still young. However, the major cause of unwantedpregnanciesparticularly for girls is the current social-economic levels of the society. The poverty index particularly from poor households is now very much below the poverty world index such that when these girls are at ...
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6 Nov 2019 in Senate:
Other issues that may subject these girls to early pregnancies in some cultures are issues of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). In most communities, FGM will involve training these girls on how to handle their husbands once they get married in future. This is taught during this FGM seclusion period. Immediately these girls come out of this seclusion period, they want to go and practice and find out how this is done. In the course of doing so, because of ignorance and being still young, they find themselves pregnant. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. ...
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6 Nov 2019 in Senate:
Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in my county for example, after those many girls got pregnant last year, we decided that all churches in our county will be holding youth camps where we bring on board professionals to come and talk on sex education. We also bring on board counsellors. That has assisted the boys and girls to inform us on what is happening. That is how we were able to establish the fact that many parents, because of being poor, are not able to provide for the girls.
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6 Nov 2019 in Senate:
The boys informed us that they can stay with very few clothes. Sometimes they do not even wash their trousers for over three days in a week while girls would want to constantly wash their clothes. Therefore, the girls would find themselves in such problems.
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6 Nov 2019 in Senate:
This Bill will go a long way to cure this problem. Part II, for example, is talking about care of expectant children and child parents.Part B is talking aboutestablishing, in consultation with the Cabinet Secretary who is responsible or relating to education, non- discriminatory enrolment back to school training programs.
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6 Nov 2019 in Senate:
I think thatshould be looked into. As I said whenthis policy was put in place, the Ministry of Education still needs to look into this and the reason whymanygirls are still not being brought on board after getting pregnant. It is a challenge because normally we reprimandthe girls while we continue crediting the boys. I heard my colleagues say that while this Bill talks about rights to a pregnant child, that they should also be jailed. In any case, he was only talking about jailing the girl. If there should be jailing, we should begin with jailing the boys first ...
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