The media has reported about Murang’a Governor Irungu Kang’ata’s declaration to offer Sh6,000 to pregnant women in his county. This idea, while it seems noble at face value, is problematic on many fronts.
Such misguided ideas are likely to normalise teen pregnancies. This financial incentive glorifies unplanned and mistimed pregnancies all in the name of increasing the number of voters. Murang’a Demographic Health indicators have since 2020 raised the red flag over the rise in HIV prevalence rates among teenagers.
By 2020, there were about 6,000 cases of teen pregnancies in the county, which were rising by June 2021, with Murang’a averaging 365 teen pregnancies monthly. Financing such pregnancies without a complementary back-to-school plan for young girls will lead to the wrong motivation to start families.
Equally, the directive wrongly assumes that it takes Sh6,000 only to raise a child. From pre-natal clinics to possible caesarian section surgery, to two years’ worth of diapers, food, clothes and a lifetime of education and healthcare, this amount does nothing towards the realities of raising a human being. Cumulatively, it takes about Sh10 million worth of needs to give one child a successful, dignified, quality life.
Existing government social welfare programmes have shown that it is not sustainable to offer one-off cash transfer initiatives. Comparatively, Washington State Department of social and health services in the USA for example, has a Pregnant Women Assistance state-funded programme that provides low-income women with cash assistance for 24 consecutive months from the date the department determines eligibility. The programme provides an estimated monthly programme of $360.
Australian Government’s Cash Assistance Program is provided to pregnant women and children up to 12 months of age. The programme provides cash for pregnant women and nursing mothers every two months to enable them to access adequate nutrition and health services in the first 1,000 days of a child's life.
There is much more that Sh6,000 can do to improve the quality of lives of women and girls. Cumulatively, the fund could alternatively be offered to promote sex education in schools to delay sexual debut among teenagers.
The finances could be used to provide dignified menstrual products for women in the county or alternatively promote contraceptive use to allow spaced, well-balanced families and for young people to attain education and be successful contributors to the Murang’a economy.
With an estimated population of 1,053,059, Murang’a has about 30,376 people living with HIV. National Aids Control Council reports show that only 45.6 per cent of those are currently receiving care and these funds could be used to increase the number of people on anti-retroviral drugs.
But knowing that Governor Irungu is a PhD holder, one assumes that he knows all the above arguments as a logical thinker. So what is in it for him?
Such careless remarks are not only unethical but dangerous. An unplanned population rise will increase ecological degradation, lower quality of life for the children and eventually increase the risk of Murang’a girls living with incomplete dreams and being a burden to the economy.
Sexual reproductive health and rights expert
