Kilifi Is At The Heart Of Teenage Pregnancy Crisis

Just the other day, as I was driving from Magarini to Malindi, I came a cross a candidate in her mid-to-late teens walking home from school. She was wearing a sweater to cover a protruding belly.

The girl is among the thousands sitting the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination. She could deliver her newborn any time.

She seemed unworried about the foetus she was carrying, or how the society perceived her as an soon-to-be mother who is still in school.

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In fact, she walked jovially to a waiting vehicle carrying passengers, probably to board it to her destination and wait for her next test paper the following day.

Her case is just one of the thousands of teenage girls who fall victim to early pregnancy in the society. And Kilifi is at the heart of this crisis.

The county shocked the nation after it was reported that 270 primary school girls are pregnant. Officials blamed it on high rates of poverty, illiteracy and defilement.

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Some village elders handle the cases in kangaroo courts. Culprits pay fines and allow the girl to be married off or even to abort the pregnancy.

Latest statistics from the County Children’s Department indicate that over 13,000 girls between 15 and 19 are expecting babies in the county, while some, from as young as 14 years, have already given birth. Most of them end up dropping out of school to get married.

“Every day there is at least one case of sexual offences against minors, and it is alarming,” a court official told the Star.

“In the prisons, there are also many offenders convicted with cases of sexual abuse.”

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What is emerging from social debate and research, however, is that it is not always a case of girls being preyed on. Adolescents often have their first sexual encounter during disco matanga (funeral discos), otherwise known as disco vumbi or disco vugu vugu.

These are dances held at night during funeral ceremonies. They run for seven nights as mourners fundraise for a dead person to meet burial expenses.

Children who attend them usually go unaccompanied by their parents. This makes it easy for them to engage in early sex in the bush, informally referred to as ‘green lodges’.

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“The dances are held around areas where it is easy for these young persons to hide and have sex, mainly unprotected. Many girls get pregnant during this time,” a research by Plan International in 2016 reported.

The county government banned disco matanga a few months ago, after it was alleged that they attract schoolgirls and lead to illicit sex. The discos have not been completely wiped out, but the authorities are recording a positive response.

Some residents, however, criticised the ban, saying the root cause of teenage pregnancies is negligence by parents. They fail to play their role to bring up children with morals, critics say.

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In his report, county Children’s Officer George Migosi said out of the seven constituencies in the county, Kilifi North is leading with 3,134 pregnancies, followed by Magarini, which has 2,861cases, and Kaloleni with 2,180 cases.

Migosi said Malindi and Kilifi South have 1,771 cases each, Ganze 1,362 and Rabai 545 cases.

“There are another 290 girls between 10 and 14 years who were reported pregnant in the past one year,” he said.

Migosi said many parents do not report such cases of teenage pregnancies, which is against the law. He said the department will soon arrest and prosecute parents who are irresponsible.

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