Secondary and primary schools students are engaging in sex at an alarming rate and the biggest culprits are boda boda riders, a report has revealed.
In 2016, 18 per cent of girl students in both levels became mothers.
Of these, about 24,000 aged 10-14 years gave birth.
Over 242,000 aged 15-18 years had babies after being impregnated by their fellow students and boda boda operators.
The shocking statistics were released yesterday by Ministry of Health programme manager Jean Patrick during the ongoing 42nd Kenya Secondary School Heads’ Association conference in Mombasa.
She spoke on the National Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health Policy (2015).
Some of the 266,000 girls who gave birth died in the process or later on.
Patrick said such students engaged in unsafe abortion because they were not ready to be mothers.
“This group are higher at risk of contracting HIV-Aids and STIs. They are also at risk of harmful practices such as FGM and sexual violence,” she said.
Narok county had the highest rate of student teenage pregnancies at 40 per cent, followed by Homa Bay (33 per cent) and West Pokot county (29 per cent).
This was higher than the national pregnancy rate of 18 per cent.
The majority of student mothers from the three counties dropped out of school.
Murang’a ( six per cent), Nyeri (seven per cent) and Nyandarua (10 per cent) had low rates of student-mother pregnancy.
The drivers of this early pregnancy are poverty, lack of education and stigma, Patrick said.