By Mabinty M. Kamara
The Speaker of Parliament, Dr Abass Bundu has ordered an investigation into a possible verbal abuse of a female parliamentarian in the well of Parliament.
Rebecca Yei Kamara, Member of the opposition Coalition for Change (C4C) party representing Constituency 029 in Kono District, was shouted at by an unidentified fellow lawmaker while making contributions in the well last week.
Last week’s session in the House featured about three items of discussion and the much anticipated sexual offences law was one of them. It generated a heated debate among the lawmakers.
Madam Kamara was responding to a contribution made by a Paramount Chief MP, PC Koor Kanagbaro Sanka III who was critical of a clause in the amended law that makes provision for children who comes in conflict with it to be sentenced to a jail term. The provision says child convicts will serve at Approved School whiles still under the age of 18 and later transferred to complete their term at the Pademba Road Correctional Center when they turn 18 years, which is the legal adult age in Sierra Leone.
PC Kanagbaro Sanka III insisted that the time spent at the Approved School for juveniles should be enough to transform them.
Kamara held a contrary view. She noted that most of the sexual offences in her district were perpetrated by children, hence her support for stiffer punishment.
“In my district in Kono, we have one of the highest number of rape cases and the perpetrators are all around 15, 16, and 17,” she stated, before she was interrupted by an unidentified male voice that said: “You are speaking nonsense.”
It was not immediately clear who exactly made the comment, although there was no doubt that it came from the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) bench.
Two MPs were singled out: Abdul Latiff Sesay on Constituency 075 in Port Loko and Abdul Karim Kamara of Constituency 059 in Kambia District. They both denied.
Deputy Minority in the House, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, later apologized on behalf of his party members.
Nonetheless, Speaker Bundu said whoever is found wanting will have their name sent to the Privilege Committee for appropriate action. This Committee disciplines members who go against procedures and activities of the House.
Rebecca Yei Kamara made history in 2018 when she won her seat in and became the first ever female lawmaker to have come from Kono.
She is also part of a minority group of female lawmakers in the parliament. After the elections, there were only 17 female MPs, against 132 electable seats. That number dropped to 15, thanks to a High Court ruling at the end of May 2019, as a result of petitions filed against about as dozen APC MPs. Two those who lost their seats were women.
This low representation of females in parliament is an illustration of a problem deep rooted in the Sierra Leonean socio-political and economic environment.
A lot of factors connive to force women out of political contests, among them intimidation from male colleagues.
A lot of civil society organizations and women’s rights groups have spent the last nearly two decades trying to change this male dominated culture.
© 2019 Politico Online
