• Bill provides for resources to run the National Council for Children’s Services - to be created.
• It also explains clearly the place of a child in custody and inheritance.
Lawmakers are in a race against time to pass a proposed law seeking to give new dawn for children before the long December recess.
Parliament has invited members of the public to give their views on the Children Bill, 2021 following its first reading in the National Assembly.
The bill was thereafter committed to the Committee on Labour and Social Welfare following its first reading.
MPs are scheduled for a short recess starting Thursday, the period within which the committee seeks to conduct public participation on the bill.
Clerk Michael Sialai in a notice on Monday asked Kenyans to send their memoranda to the August House with their views on the bill, and possible amendments.
The bill sponsored by Majority leader Amos Kimunya, therefore government-driven legislation, seeks to provide for equal (50-50) parental responsibility for children.
The law also seeks to address the legal gaps in child adoption, foster care, custody, maintenance, guardianship, and protection.
It also seeks to create a state agency with the sole responsibility of administration of children’s institutions and to give effect to the Constitution.
“The memoranda may be addressed to the clerk of the National Assembly, hand-delivered or emailed to the [email protected] by November 4, 2021,” the notice reads.
The proposed law also enhances punishments for child online exploitation, child marriage, trafficking, radicalization, and sexual exploitation.
The existing children’s law was enacted in 2001 and is viewed as outdated having been processed under the old constitutional dispensation and has no specific institutions responsible for children.
The new bill seeks to assign the role of protecting children to police, chiefs, children’s officer, probation officers, prison officers, medical workers, and teachers.
LAW PROVISIONS
It also seeks to raise the age of criminal responsibility in children from the current eight years to 12 years and also provides for the separation of children when in police custody.
The new law further allows Kenyans in the diaspora to adopt children as well as establish an inspectorate to checkmate children’s homes and other care institutions.
Stakeholders behind the bill say it stands to serve the best interest of the child, provides for resources to run the National Council for Children’s Services to be created, and explains clearly the place of a child in custody and inheritance.
The legislation further provides for measures to counter violence against children, access to justice for children through diversion programs, and the right to parental care.
It introduces provisions for social security to enable orphaned and vulnerable children to access alternative care services.
The new law also provides expressively the right of every child to free and compulsory basic education as well as health.
It also mandates county governments to establish child care facilities, make provisions or facilitate access to pre-primary education, play and recreational centres for children.
The proposed law at the same time provides for the establishment of child welfare programmes, systems and structures in collaboration with the National Council for Children’s Services.
Edited by D Tarus