Recently in the Kenyan Parliament, the Speaker did a disgraceful act in expelling a lactating MP mother from the House.
Zolaika Hassan had gone along with her less-than six month’s old baby to the House to attend her duties, as a people’s representative. She also was undertaking her duties as a mother of a young baby. But the Speaker and most other MPs saw differently and caused a furore that Hassan had taken a non-MP to the House.
First of all, have these people not been babies? What disturbance did the baby cause such that even the mother had to be sent out of the House? The baby, as far as we know, was asleep, and did not interrupt any proceedings. So, why the hullaballoo?
Moreover, the House had debated the issue of lactating mothers four years before and passed a motion to provide facilities for such staff. Up to now they have not provided such a facility. Who, then, is to blame for Hassan having taken her baby?
Maimuna Abdallah, Kisenyi
