This archive report was first published on 17 June 2020.
Published on June 17, 2020, a survey by the Kenya Health Information System has exposed a disturbing trend in Machakos County, where more than 28 girls on average became pregnant daily in the last five months.
According to the data, a total of 3,964 girls aged 19 years and below were reported pregnant within that period, with Athi River being the most affected area and Kalama having the least number of reported pregnancies among school-going age girls.
The cases peaked in March, and authorities are now sounding the alarm, expressing fear that the data points to a bigger crisis.
Machakos County Children Officer Salome Muthama partly blames parents and an ineffective justice system for the crisis, saying that most of the cases 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.
"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," Ms Muthama told reporters in Machakos Town.
She noted that the teenage girls are exposed to sex pests since the grandparents are unable to monitor them closely and called for concerted efforts to reverse the worrying trend, saying the unprecedented number of teenage pregnancies in the region portend a high school dropout rate and early marriages.
