•Trans Nzoia is listed among the counties with the highest number of teenage mothers due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
•Binti Care Foundation CEO and founder Elizabeth Mumbi Mudenyo cited areas such as Tawai village in Kiungani, Maridadi in Kwanza, Marambachi, Bikeke in Sirende and Suam in Chepchoina as the most affected areas.
Image: DAVID MUSUNDI
A Kitale-based lobby group has decried increasing cases of teen pregnancies that have put young girls into untold suffering.
Binti Care Foundation CEO and founder Elizabeth Mumbi Mudenyo said there was an urgent need for stakeholders to join hands and re-look at the measures that had been put in place to address teen pregnancies.
Mudenyo said the rate at which young girls are getting pregnant in TransNzoia is alarming.
Trans Nzoia is listed among the counties with the highest number of teenage mothers due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
She cited areas such as Tawai village in Kiungani, Maridadi in Kwanza, Marambachi, Bikeke in Sirende and Suam in Chepchoina as the most affected areas.
“Continued support and rescue of the teen mothers is not just an easy move. It is not enough to tackle the issue,” she said.
Mudenyo spoke to the Star in Kitale on Sunday.
She urged parents to report cases of teen pregnancies to government institutions for action to be taken against the perpetrators.
She said her organisation was ready to partner with parents, professional bodies and state actors to address the issue of sexual reproductive health among boys and girls.
“We will also be asking for the cooperation of all to address parenting skills through medical camps to treat sexually related ailments among those affected,” she said.
The organisation's programme manager, Stanley Barasa Siakilo said there is a dire need to have a complete paradigm shift to put in place accurate measures that will end the bad manners of men impregnating young girls.
He said that sexually active girls and boys were continually engaging in unprotected sex that was responsible for extreme poverty levels in families through trading sex for basic needs including sanitary towels.
“We are calling for an end to poor policies and leadership that had failed to advise, warn and penalise sexual immorality,” he said.
He said poor parenting skills and approaches have tolerated the vice of sex among teens hence allowing it to surface as a normal habit should be discouraged.
He said sex before marriage is no longer considered a taboo, and has left girls more vulnerable to sex offers.
Siakilo underscored the need for the support of the boy child who had been neglected.
He asked the government to put in place programmes that will target boy child empowerment to help bring down the existing awareness gap on sexuality and reproductive health.
On peer influence and peer pressure, he said a bad habit spreads like bush fire among peers and if not addressed, society and the young generation may be doomed forever.
Siakilo said the rate at which both young boys and girls were competing to have sex as proof of maturity was worrying.
They called on Trans Nzoi Governor George Natembeya to put in place strategies that will help end the vice.
“Young girls are having killer sex and giving birth at an alarming rate,” he said.
He said if the government will not prioritise the matter, there will be no stable families in future.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
Image: DAVID MUSUNDI