and KWAMBOKA OYARO 

A Parliamentary committee yesterday reached out to the public for comments on the new Bill to protect children's rights. 

NGOs and other bodies dealing with children's issues were in particular asked to make inputs to the House Committee on Health, Housing, Labour and Social Welfare's work.

Hearings on the Children's Bill 2001, the outcome of a task force on children's law headed by Lady Justice Effie Owuor, begin on June 6 at a Nairobi venue to be announced later.

Parliamentary Health Committee chairman Newton Kulundu appealed to the public to come forward with recommendations.

The Committee asked media organisations to analyse the document and educate the public on its implications.

"We want Kenyans to help shape the Bill," said Dr Kulundu, accompanied at the news conference at Parliament Buildings by seven members of his team – Mr Joshua Toro, Mr Frederick Kalulu, Mr Zebedeo Opore, Mr Kihara Mwangi, Mr Norman Nyagah, Mr Raphael Kitur and Mr Njehu Gatabaki.

Speaking in Nairobi yesterday at a symposium on child abuse and neglect, Lady Justice Owuor said some measures intended to protect the child seemed contradictory.

"It's unfortunate that, in many instances, where the law provides protection with one hand, it seems to take it away with the other," she said.

While a claim that a 14-year-old consented to a sexual act affords no defence to a charge of defilement, the same person would walk free if the child is 15.

She said: "What is the difference between a child of 14 and a 15-year-old in making decisions? It seems the law is intent on protecting the offender more than the victim." 

The law fails, too, by recognising only physical abuse. 

The Children's Bill 2001 redefines a child as one below 18 years and makes the scope of child abuse include physical, sexual and mental injury.

It criminalises early marriages and female genital mutilation and violations of these rights will lead to 12 months in jail or a Sh50,000 fine.

She said there was no statute stipulating the rights of the child or the role of the community in protecting the child.

Parliament found faults in the original Bill in 1995 and sent it back to the Attorney-General for redrafting.

Mixed reactions have greeted the Bill since its publication by the AG last November.

Some children, NGOs and High Court Judge Joyce Aluoch have faulted the document, among others, for giving mothers more parental responsibilities than fathers.

The Bill says the mother, and not the father, should be responsible for all children born outside marriage and seeks to protect street children, orphans, truants and those whose parents are in prison.

The Bill, expected in the House soon for the Second Reading, bans female circumcision, child prostitution, child labour and child soldiers.

It requires parents to give the child every care, including primary education and, where possible, property bequest.

No child, it states, should be subjected to capital punishment or life imprisonment.

The Bill also sets up Children's Courts and a new National Council of Children Services, which, besides advising Government, will co-ordinate the work of children's societies, homes and approved schools.

Parents who breach the new law will face 12 months in jail or a Sh50,000 fine, or both, while those convicted of child cruelty face four years' jail or a Sh50,000 fine or both.

The Bill harmonises the Children's and Young Persons Act, the Adoption Act and the Guardianship of Infants Act.

It also incorporates the principle of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 and ratified by Kenya in 1990.