Let the Children Vote

Why shouldn't the voting age restriction be abolished? Indeed, some of the rights hat Kenyans can exercise can only be exercised when they turn 18. Why shouldn't the age requirement to enjoy these rights be abolished? The Registration of Persons Act (Cap 107, Laws of Kenya) states that a person who has attained the age of 18 shall upon attaining such age present himself to a Registrar of Persons within 90 days and provide such particulars as specified in the Act for the purposes of being registered and being issued with a national identity card. This identity card is the primary document for the acquisition of a passport and a voter's card. A passport ensures that your right to leave or enter the territory of Kenya shall not be infringed. A voter's card ensures that you shall be in a position to exercise your democratic right to vote at an election, by-election or referendum. It is to the latter that I wish to turn my attention.

Children have unique needs. It is the responsibility of both parents to ensure that their children enjoy their childhood, that they are protected from harm and that their basic needs of education, health care, food, clothing and shelter are provided. They are to be protected from coercion, abuse, neglect or any other form of  injury that they be at risk from. It is the responsibility of the parents to protect their children and this responsibility may ends when the children attain the age of majority. However, during the eighteen years of childhood, children will be affected by the decisions their parents make, especially in the choice of leaders that they elect to public office during elections and by-elections. 

Over the past 47 years of Independence, parents have made poor choices, especially when you consider the pivotal role such leaders have played on issues that affect children directly or indirectly. It is our political leaders who have made decisions regarding education, health care, the environment, security, the national debt, war and peace, and national cohesion, and many of their decisions have been wrong and wrong-headed, informed mainly by political expediency and some perverted sense of ethno-nationalistic chauvinism. The needs of the children have played second fiddle to the needs of the political actors in Kenya.

Examining the question of security, children by far have faced the brunt of the cost of poor security in our towns, cities and villages. In the recent past, the murder, rape and abuse of children has become widespread with not a week passing before some other atrocity is visited on the innocent ones. Security decisions are made without considering the needs of the children for they do not vote, therefore, they do need to be considered. But it is in the realm of education that children have truly been short-changed. 

In perpetuating the current education system, the needs of children are given lip service and they are abandoned to classes that are over-crowded, teachers who are apathetic and a system that has not been overhauled in nigh on 30 years. Education is the key to unlocking the prosperity of an individual, offering him tools and skills that will ensure that he will lead a comfortable life. In robbing children of this opportunity, the political class has played a commanding role in this theatre of the absurd and they have done so knowing that children will not hold them accountable for their misdeeds. Successive Ministers for Education have neglected the educational needs of children, instead choosing to concern themselves with new ways and means of stealing from the public coffers. Meanwhile, it s not unthinkable to imagine that the newly overcrowded classrooms in our thousands of public primary schools will continue to suffer from the malaise and rot that has permeated the public service for the past few decades.

Children have a right to be heard. They must be heard when politicians suggest that there is no money for the hiring of teachers when there is a shortage that runs into the tens of thousands. They must be heard when politicians fail to take into account that children from other nations enjoy the benefits of new thinking in education, especially considering that increasingly these children have to contend with a shrinking world in their futures. They must be heard when the government chooses to expend billions in new weapons systems at the expense of desks and chairs and books for the schools. The frustrations of children are increasingly being demonstrated when they go on 'strikes' in their various boarding secondary schools and set public property on fire. Their frustrations are demonstrated by the increasing number of children who use and abuse narcotics and alcohol and other types of drugs. Today, thousands of children are being diagnosed with clinical depression as a consequence of the neglect that they face both at home and at school. The myriad children charities and organisations try to stem the tide but their efforts amount to nothing for children do not have a political voice of their own.

Children can only be heard when they become active participants in the political process. This can only come around if they have the vote. Many of the values that we inculcate in our children seem to atrophy when they enter their youthful stage and die when they become full-grown adults. It is to children we must turn if we wish to reverse the rot that has permeated the political process. Children are taught to hold the truth above all else. Children do not understand the moral gray areas that seem to pervade the decision-making processes of adults. If a child is asked to choose between a thief and a murderer, he will choose neither for neither is good. Children have the capacity to look for and hold out for only the good in society. If they were to make their presence felt in the political arena, many of the crooks, snake-oil salesmen, charlatans, liars, thieves and murderers who walk the corridors of power would instead be in the dock, getting their just desserts. In the 21st Century, it is imperative that children have a voice. This should be the moral question of our time.