It's not just sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
Far from it.
The behaviour of cooped-up, out-of-school teens who seek rave parties has been medicalised and given a name.
They are suffering from addiction to fun and 'conduct disorder', Dr Njagi Kumantha said. He is Kenya's foremost expert on addiction and behavioural disorders.
These young people may need to see a psychiatrist but there aren't many psychiatrists in Kenya. There's also widespread aversion to the concept of mental illness requiring treatment by a professional. And it's usually expensive.
Kumantha says many teenagers running away from home to attend rave parties for days are probably "sick" with a conduct disorder.
They've been out of school since March because of Covid-19 and unstructured life is pretty boring.
Dozens of young people recently have been found indulging in sex, drugs and alcohol. This isn't new, of course, but the numbers are unusually high and distressing.
Kumantha said counselling alone will not help.
"This is not rebelliousness but it's a disease," he said.
Dr Kumantha told the Star the condition is treatable and he has successfully resolved such cases, which increased during the prolonged out-of-school period.
"The running away brings relief. The disorder reaches the stage of raving when the urge to have a good time gets to the point of addiction," he said.
"I've treated many teenage girls for it. First, is to remove the anxiety, followed by psychotherapy."
Dr Kumantha said blaming poor parenting is unfair because conduct or anxiety disorders could have many causes.
The former director of Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital said the disorder is most common in teens aged between 14 and 16 years. It's much less common among those around age 18
He said the latest incidents could have been triggered by the long period out of school.
"Children need to grow physically, emotionally and intellectually. Education is a form of intellectual growth, it's also a part of our culture and a way of life," he said.
"Keeping children at home is violating their intellectual growth and they become stressed and develop anxiety. Their behaviour could change into juvenile delinquency or conduct disorder."
Teenagers don’t usually need medication, however, under certain circumstances, health professionals might prescribe off-label drugs to treat impulsivity, aggression, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder and other problems.
This is followed by psychotherapy called cognitive-behavioural therapy that aims to reshape the child's thinking to improve problem-solving skills, anger management, moral reasoning skills and impulse control.
"The ones who have raved may have problems going into the future because this becomes a new normal for them," Dr Kumantha said.
"That's why they need to see a psychiatrist, who can tell how deep the disease is. Some might need to be mentally stabilised."
Dr Kumantha calls for social intervention, which is mainly taking children back to school.
He spoke after 44 schoolchildren and their host were arrested on Saturday and drugs and alcohol seized in an operation in Nairobi’s Mountain View Estate. Police said pornography was involved.
The crackdown was triggered by a tip-off from residents about a cartel targeting schoolgirls in the city. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations said the children included 26 boys and 18 girls aged between 14 and 17.
All are in primary and secondary schools in Nairobi, Kiambu and Machakos counties and had been there for hours, the police said.
In July, 26 students were also found in Kakamega in a house suspected to be used for group sex.
Sixteen of them were aged below 18 while eight were above 18 but still students.
(Edited by V. Graham)
