The county seems to be losing the battle against teenage pregnancy as cases of girls dropping out of school continue to rise.
Yesterday, Maureen Mwangovya, the county executive for Gender and Social Services, released figures that showed that 17,850 teenagers had fallen pregnant in recent months.
Most have dropped out of school.
“These are statistics from our various health facilities and they were recorded as of December last year. In September 13,000 girls were pregnant," said Ms Mwangovya.
"This means in the three months to December, 4,850 teenage girls fell pregnant. This is alarming."
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Mwangovya accused parents of not taking responsibility for guiding their teenage girls in the right moral direction. She claimed this was the main cause of the pregnancies.
“Every parent is supposed to know where their children are. Unfortunately, parental responsibility is weak, and that is why a daughter can go out and come back at 8pm and the parent will keep quiet. If the daughter comes with a packet of flour, the parents will take the flour and ask nothing.”
A task force formed by Governor Amason Kingi last year to look into teenage pregnancies has yet to start work.
The task force is constituted by the departments of Gender, Culture and Sports, Health, and Education.
Gender bill
“We are going to have our first meeting on Thursday. One of the policies we are preparing is the Gender Based Violent Bill, which we shall soon take to the county assembly,” Mwangovya said.
Firikini Jacobs of the Kilifi County University and College Students Association said the teenage pregnancy issue boiled down to poverty.
According to statistics from the Kilifi Department of Health, most of the pregnancy cases were from poor rural areas.
Mr Jacobs challenged both the national and county governments to empower the local community economically if they were serious about addressing the issue.
The Kilifi County Chief Officer for Health, Bilal Mazoya, said contraceptive use among adolescents was low.
“A good number of teenagers who are pregnant are between 10-14 years. This is a very tender age to carry a pregnancy,” said Mr Mazoya.
