BBI will fix gender bias, say women

Administration and National Security Committee member Rose Buyu at Parliament Buildings, Nairobi. [Elvis Ogina,Standard]

Women MPs have called for increased empowerment and equality in the leadership of this country in the new constitutional dispensation.

With Kenyans warming up to the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) reforms, the women leaders are seeking more commitment to gender equality if the country is to attain the two-thirds gender rule.

Nominated MPs Jackline Oduol and Dennitah Ghati of ODM claimed proposals contained in the BBI to have male and female senators was a big first step to increasing women’s professional outreach.

"Recognising the importance of having women in positions of leadership and the critical role that women play in efforts to promote stable and lasting peace is a great step," said Oduol.

Further, the women leaders vowed to build on BBI's commitment to establish a new generation of gender advocates.

Scrap special seats

"This means the issue of gender equity will be achieved at the Senate easily without emotional exuberance if Kenyans ratify the proposals contained in the BBI Bill,'' explained Oduol.

The legislators said they had no regrets to have the positions of Woman Reps scrapped under the new constitutional order should the BBI Bill be passed as it is.

BBI proposes the scrapping of the special seats for women and that of the 16 members nominated by political parties, like Ghati and Oduol.

In another step to cure the gender imbalance in the National Assembly, the BBI recommends a 360-member House, where 290 will be elected by the people in the constituencies through representative democracy and another 70 filled by various political parties.

The additional 70 seats will be allocated on the strength of actual votes cast per county and will be distributed among youths, people with disabilities and women.

According to the MPs, women who want to run for elective seats now have a chance of up to 35 out of the 70 additional legislative seats.

"Women Reps control about Sh7 million given per constituency. It means like Migori with seven constituencies, we get Sh56 million," explained Ghati, adding that that money is not sufficient when shared among all the constituencies compared to the Sh100 million elected MPs get through CDF.

Similar concerns have been echoed by Migori Woman Rep Pamela Odhiambo and Kisumu's Rosa Buyu.