NAIROBI, Kenya Jun 2 – Tempers flared in the National Assembly this afternoon as lawmakers debated the National Police Service’s disqualification of female recruits due to pregnancy.Makueni MP Suzanne Kiamba sparked the debate after requesting a statement from the Departmental Committee on Administration and Internal Security over the dismissal of 18 female recruits from the Kiganjo Police Training College on account of pregnancy.Committee Chairperson Gabriel Tongoyo, together with lawmakers Julius Sunkuli and George Murugara, maintained that the move was a standard administrative procedure based on medical fitness requirements rather than a disciplinary action.“It is a known fact that, the pregnant recruit cannot withstand a vigorous training in this barracks,”Tongoyo said.Kilgoris MP Sunkuli added; “The police and the army are called disciplined forces and usually it is taken that um pregnancy is an act of indiscipline [sic],”Murugara explained; “The truth is that on the day of recruitment, the ladies are required to state on the forms whether they are expectant or not. If she answers no, she is admitted to the college. That is when the pregnancy test is done.”“The problem is that sometimes it may be too early to detect a pregnancy, so the first test may turn out negative, while the second one, which is done about 4–5 months later, turns out positive,” he elaborated.However, Dagoretti North MP Beatrice Elachi and Nairobi Woman Representative Esther Passaris called for a review of the regulations, arguing that they should better protect women’s constitutional rights and equal employment opportunities.“We need to address something. If you are not allowed to get pregnant when you go for training, and you know that women will engage in sex and get pregnant, why not put them on a family planning option throughout the training?” Passaris asked.“Why not invest in commodities so that they can have sex and not get pregnant? Let us just be civilised. At the end of the day, when you have sex and you are going to make a woman pregnant, the consequence of sex is getting a woman pregnant, and men are very irresponsible.If you want to enjoy a woman, enjoy the child,” she said amid jeers from her colleagues.