A female Kenyan Member of Parliament (MP), Zuleika Hassan was ordered to leave parliament after she had brought her baby.
Other female MPs walked out in solidarity with their colleague, while some male MPs described her actions as shameful.
According to BBC News, Zuleika Hassan said she had brought her five-month-old baby with her to work because of a domestic emergency and that parliament didn’t have a creche.
According to the Kenyan Parliament’s house rules, “strangers” are not allowed into the chamber, children included.
Hassan demanded that parliament should create a more “family-friendly atmosphere” if it wanted more women to become MPs. She said:
I have tried hard not to come with the baby, but today I had an emergency; what was I supposed to do? If parliament had a nursery or a creche, I would be able to put my baby there.
Deputy Speaker Moses Cheboi said in a statement that there is a facility in parliament for mothers to nurse their babies. He, however, added that nursing mothers should:
… bring along their nannies to watch over the babies at the facility while they undertake their official duties.
The BBC News report says that:
in 2018 New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden was the first female world leader to take her baby, three-month-old Neve Te Aroha, to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.