This archive report was first published on 17 June 2020.
Published on June 17, 2020, a report by the Children's Department in Machakos revealed a shocking trend of teenage pregnancies in the county.
According to the report, approximately 4,000 school girls below the age of 19 have been impregnated in the last 4 months alone.
Children's Department Officer Salome Muthama attributed the increase in cases to the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to school closures.
The breakdown of cases by sub-county showed that Masinga had 104 cases of pregnancies among children aged 10-14 and 601 cases among those aged 15-19.
Athi River had seven pregnancies for minors aged 10-14 and 561 for those between 15-19, while Machakos had 48 (ages 10-14) and 259 (ages 15-19) cases.
Yatta had 10 (ages 10-14) and 462 (ages 15-19) cases.
Ms. Muthama accused parents of neglecting their children and urged them to step up in their role, stating that a majority of the cases involve close relatives.
She also challenged the Judiciary to provide the Children's Department with legal advisors to help speed up the cases, as most of them are languishing in child correctional centres due to lack of court representation.
However, the Machakos County government refuted the figures, stating that they haven't been verified and called for proper investigations to be done.
Education CEC Lazarus Kivuya disputed the figures, saying it's impossible to have such a big number within the last few months, and suggested that hospitals are better placed to provide the correct figures.
