War On Teen Pregnancy In Bearing Fruits

Between the year 2012 and 2013, 17 girls dropped out of Nyajanja Secondary School in Kochia, Homa Bay County. This alarmed Mr Samuel Odhiambo Okelo, the school’s principal, who had worked there for hardly two years.

He realised the strategy used to discourage girls from teenage sex was not effective, as it only made the subject “mysterious, distant and hidden” to the girls during counselling sessions that were mostly conducted by female teachers.

So, he decided take matters into his own hand. “I congregate my girls and talk to them about sex without euphemisms. Coming from a man like me, they see that I am capable of warning them about the damage that unhealthy sexual relations can do to their lives.”

In 2014, among a student population of 207, including 89 girls, no pregnancy was reported in the school, he said. And the highest score by a girl rose from C - (minus) to C + (plus), according to performance graphs pinned in the staff room.

For the past three years, concerted efforts by male teachers, such as Mr Okelo, and chiefs working with the community to reduce teenage pregnancies have been bearing fruit.

Regionally, statistics are worrying. According to the latest demographic health survey, 19.2% of girls aged between 15 and 19 in Homa Bay County have had a live birth already, while 22.2% within that bracket have begun child bearing.

In addition, contraception uptake among women aged 15 to 49 in the county is below average, at 46.7%.

While people aged between 15 and 19 are sexually active, their level of contraception, even for disease preventing measures such as condom use, is the lowest, at below five per cent.

According to chiefs and other law enforcers, poverty and passive parenting make it difficult to effectively tackle teenage pregnancies and punish the people responsible for them.

“No matter how much you threaten the girls, they will never reveal who made them pregnant,” said chief Sospeter Ochieng’ Oyugo from South K’agan.

This frustration was echoed by an official at the children’s office, who requested not to be named as he is not authorised to speak to journalists. “Now we can blame any male person — motorcycle riders, teachers, relatives, boyfriends or anyone in the village — because the girls never reveal who impregnated them.”

The Nation met a few schoolgirls who had been rescued from the homes of men they had eloped with. They were rescued by the chief, police and the children’s department. In Genga Location, bordering Kisii County,there were four cases.

Chief Oyugo blamed parents, who he said do not ask questions when they see their daughters with new clothes and shoes whose origin they do not know.

“Some parents, because of poverty or just by not caring, do not provide even the most basic necessities to their daughters, such as sanitary towels, leaving the girls very vulnerable to anyone who can dangle a little money to their faces.”

A father of four grown girls himself, the chief sits in the board of Kachar Girls Secondary School, a new institution built by the Constituency Development Fund, where he extends his paternal skills.

Kachar is among the few girls-only schools in the county, alongside Asumbi Girls’ High School, Ogandi Girls High School, Rangwe School and St Bakhita School.

To prevent students from falling prey to such men, Principal John Ogeke of Odienya Mixed Secondary School said he has a kitty which he uses to provide girls in the institution with sanitary towels, soap and “those little things they are offered at the cost of their education”.

This indeed is a positive move by the stakeholders in the area to ensure that girls stay in school and make something positive out of their lives in the near future. If this trend is replecated countrywide then teenage pregnancies would be a thing of the past in the country.

But as long as a step has been madwe then their is hope for more to be done.

Reference : www.nation.co.ke