About 4000 teenage girls have been impregnated within five months of a COVID-19 inspired lockdown in Kenya.
The new reality threatens the educational future of a growing number of teenage girls across the east African country as it struggles to grapple with an upsurge in COVID-19 cases.
According to the results of a Kenya Health Information System survey, Machakos County in the north-eastern half of the country is leading the pack in the growing number of teenage pregnancies. The data recorded 3,964 teenage pregnancies of girls aged 19 over the last four months.
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According to children’s department officer, Salome Muthama
“During this coronavirus pandemic we do have 4000 impregnated girls. These are so many innocent girls,” she said.
She blamed a rise in the cases on immediate family members of the pregnant teenage girls as well as COVID-19 that led to the closure of schools in the first place. She stated that many of the girls were defiled by close family members and as many as 200 of the reported cases were as a result of rape of minors aged 14 and below.
“Most of these cases you will find involve children who were taken from urban centres in the wake of Covid-19 and left in the hands of their grandmothers in the countryside as the parents returned to the towns. How can a 12 year old girl become a mother?” she asked.
“All the people who have impregnated these children needs be arraigned but it is becoming a challenge. We need special court sittings to address and deal with these cases,” Salome appealed.
A breakdown of the figures include;
“Masinga sub-county has 104 cases of pregnancies of children between the ages of 10-14 and another 601 cases for teenagers aged 15-19. Athi River has seven pregnancies for minors aged 10-14 and 561 for teenagers aged 15-19; Machakos has 48 (ages 10-14) and 259 (ages 15-19); Yatta has 10 (ages 10-14) and 462 (ages 15-19) respectively.”
County officials however rejected the figures of pregnant teenage girls saying they need to be verified through proper investigations.
Kenya has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the world with 82 teenagers per 1,000 births.
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