Sunday, May 15, 2016

Government should declare teenage pregnancy a county disaster – The Standard Digital News (press release) (blog)

The Ministry of Good health is operating from time in offering the policies, standards and guidelines for lowering maternal mortality in Kenya.

There are glaring indicators that sexual task among young individuals begins very early and is approaching endemic levels if not anything is executed to reverse the trend.

In line along with the Constitution of Kenya and the United Nations Sustainable Improvement Goals, these guidelines seek to entrench the enjoyment of sexual and reproductive Good health and rights for all.

The consequences of unsafe sex among the youth are manifestly grave. In March, this year, Bungoma Woman Representative Reginalda Wanyonyi called on the government to declare teenage pregnancy a county disaster after twenty girls in one school were confirmed to be in the family line merely after a midterm break.

And elsewhere in Kilifi, there were shockwaves across the county in October 2014 once 17 girls from 2 primary schools got pregnant at the exact same time. The circumstance is inadequate across the nation along with nearly one in 5 adolescent girls having begun youngster bearing as per the Kenya Demographic and Good health Survey 2014.

Aside from the noticeable consequences of large-range school dropouts best to missed economic opportunities, teenage pregnancies additionally pose major threats to the bodily wellbeing of adolescent girls.

The last couple of years has actually seen the mushrooming of unsafe abortion clinics in the two urban and peri-urban areas. There have actually been multiple incidents in the recent past where minors are caught in sex and drug orgies, an indication that they are privy to so a lot write-up regarding their sex and social lives.

The notion that teaching them regarding their sexuality is exposing them to excess write-up and ruining them is therefore illogical.

It ought to additionally not be enjoyed as a foreign idea, yet quite as an facet of African culture which has actually been practiced for ages, yet is just taking a various dimension due to the most recent societal setup.

The provision of comprehensive sexuality education including investing in adolescent-youth friendly solutions ought to be enjoyed as an investment as it frees the currently burdened Good health unit of brand-new HIV cases, much more maternal complications and consequently frees sources for various other sectors that direly requirement them.

It additionally means that much more kids are able to finish school and engage in economic tasks that in transform add to economic development.

It is time therefore that educationists, religious teams and various other stakeholders connect the push for the publication of sex education guidelines to enable Good health practitioners to implement them and spare our adolescents and youth.