County government have been urged to establish psychosocial centres to counsel and equip gender-based violence victims with life skills for self-reliance.
Samuel Wandimi, a human rights crusader, from InformAction said the centres should be established at the ward level to reach as many victims as possible.
InformAction is an organisation that works around social justice issues.
“It is time we have the psychosocial centres which will have a place where people can learn life skills and be self-reliant,” he said.
Wandimi said victims may need life skills to enable them start income generating activities.
He spoke during a meeting between communities and duty-bearers who shared experiences and interventions during the Covid-19.
He said gender-based violence is still rampant as a result of Covid-19, with women and children bearing the brunt.
Anita Njeri, a GBV activist from Othaya, said cases of teenage girls who get impregnated by fellow teenage boys are rampant.
“Whereas before it has been assumed that the girls are being impregnated by adults, we also have situations where they are impregnated by teenage boys,” she said.
The increase of teenage pregnancies was escalated by children being home for a long time following the closure of schools last year as a measure to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Njeri said the rise in cases of teenage pregnancy was because most of them were idle or bored while others were influenced by what they see on social media.
“The fact that movement had been limited and the children locked up in their estates and homes, then these were the results,” she said.
To fight early pregnancies, she said, there is need to have boys sensitised as much as the girls on the consequences of sexual behaviours.
Njeri said they should be sensitised on their sexuality not as a taboo but something that is of health concern. She said it can be stressful for a 13-year-old boy to be told that he will be a father.
Njeri said even after school resumes, boys who have found themselves being fathers will need to be counselled alongside the girls.
The society has been biased as people still blame the boy even when he is underage, she observed.
“Even where there is an age difference and the girl is older than the boy, you will find parent who want teenage boys prosecuted for impregnating their daughters. No one really wants to think about this teenage boy as a child as well,” she said.
