Vol. CXXV No. 23

GAZETTE NOTICE NO. 1135

THE MATTER OF THE PETITION BY THE PEMBA COMMUNITY FOR FORMAL RECOGNITION AS AN ETHNIC COMMUNITY OF KENYA WHEREAS the National Assembly considered public petition No. 41 of 2020 dated the 19th November, 2020, regarding the recognition of the Pemba people of Kenya as citizens of the Republic of Kenya; WHEREAS the petition posits that the Pemba Community are part of the sixteen Swahili dialects of the traditional Swahili of Kenya; WHEREAS the Pemba community settled within the ten-mile coastal strip which was later incorporated into the protectorate of Kenya, and later into the territory of the Republic of Kenya; WHEREAS the failure to recognize the Pemba Community as citizens of Kenya continues to cause disenfranchisement and exclusion of the community from national development; and WHEREAS the National Assembly recommended vide its Report of the year 2021 that: “the Pemba people from the Coast of Kenya be recognized as an ethnic group in Kenya and be issued with the relevant identification documents in accordance with the Constitution