NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 1 – Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi on Monday ordered the immediate arrest of adults responsible for teenage pregnancies in Trans Nzoia County.
Over 10,000 teenage girls are reported to have been impregnated, which is the highest number in the country to have been recorded in single county.
The CS further banned overnight traditional funeral ceremonies commonly known as ‘disco matanga,’ which provide a fertile ground for adults to prey on teenage girls, with immediate effect.
He spoke during a security and development project tour in Transzoia.
In January, County Commissioners were directed to develop a database for learners who fail to return to school either because of pregnancy or other factors.
The directive was issued by CS Matiangi during a tour of Tharaka Nithi County where majority of girls had not gone back to school due to pregnancies.
“We will look for everyone in partnership with our chiefs and I am happy that the County Commissioner here has mapped out about where students are and we will go bring them back to school. That is how the government will work,” Matiangi said at the time.
The sustained efforts to tame teen pregnancies followed a report in June 2020, initially dismissed by Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha as ‘obnoxious’, which reported 152,820 teen pregnancies in under three months.
The reported attributed the situation to the closure of schools in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, with most school children returning home for a prolonged period of time where they were unattended.
Speaking while touring schools in Nakuru County after schools reopened on January 4, CS Magoha said the ministry was aware of cases of teen pregnancies but dismissed the figures as a ploy by selfish individuals who had a hidden agenda.
“I would like to interrogate the rate of the pregnancies because they look obnoxious. I am asking myself as a professor, did these girls go and report that they are pregnant? Who is giving us these figures because they seem to be definitive? Could some NGOs who are keen on pushing sex education be using these exaggerated numbers,” said the Education CS.
Prof Magoha called for tougher action against individuals who sexually assault girls even as he urged parents to pay more attention in morally guiding their children.
A Demographic Health Survey in 2019 indicated that 400,000 teenagers get pregnant every year.
