Teenage sex: Let's not bury our heads in the sand

Teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and an exponential rise in HIV infections among youth have become global concerns.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund, there were 1.75 million youth living with Aids in 2020 globally.

The tragedy is that the victims are aged between 10 and 19 years. It doesn’t help that most African cultures regard discussion on sex as taboo.

That means the youth are largely left to their own devices to experiment. Unfortunately, the experiments have resulted in unwanted pregnancies and abortions that often turn fatal.

We are living in a fast paced digital world in which information is churned out faster than it can be assimilated, and the youth have access to content they hardly understand. For that reason, it is wrong for parents to assume their children are innocent in matters of sex.

The truth is that majority of the youth are sexually active and at a stage they are ready to experiment.

Adults cannot therefore continue to bury their heads in the sand and hope all will be okay, no. Time has come when adults and parents must sit their children down and have chats on matters of sex.

Some parents and religious groups opposed the introduction of Age-Appropriate Comprehensive Sexuality Education in schools. While they advocate sexual abstinence in line with biblical teachings, that has clearly not worked.

According to statistics from counties, between January and May 2020, at least 151,433 teenage pregnancies were recorded.

A United Nations Population Fund Report shows that Kenya had 378,397 pregnancies in girls aged 10-19 years between July 2016 and June 2017.

The youth must be given the right information about sex, the dangers of unprotected sexual encounters and how to protect themselves against STDs, HIV and pregnancies whenever its hard to embrace abstinence.