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At only 16 and in Form Two, Jael Nduku* became a mother and had to stop going to school, at least for a short while, to raise her child.

Within no time, the father of her child disappeared without a trace and Jael  had to take up the role singlehandedly.

Luckily for her, Jael’s mother fully accommodated her despite her new responsibilities and even insisted that she should go back and continue with her education. “I went back to school when I was 17 and had to repeat a class so that I could catch up. Today, I am a young mother and a student. Most of the time, the blame is put on the girl child, which should not be the case. Sometimes, many of the girls engage in irresponsible sexual behaviour and end up getting pregnant, because of many factors, such as poverty,” Jael, now a Form Four student, says.

And adds: “You can imagine a girl does not have sanitary towels or is in boarding school and maybe the mother does not give her enough pocket money for the upkeep and there is a man who will offer to give her money in exchange for sex. In some cases, there is no choice… I think that just like we have male condom dispensers, there should also be sanitary towels dispensers so that young girls can have enough pads and they do not have to seek other ways.”

She terms it as unfortunate that most of the time, girls suffer most from sexual harassment, early marriages, gender based violence and retrogressive cultural practices among others.

Even challenging, she says, is the fact that not much of sex education is taught in schools to give them a deeper understanding of the issues.

Empower girls

She also adds that it is high time that sex stops being seen as a taboo because teenagers are engaging in it out there.

“We need to have this conversation on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights so that girls can be more empowered. More safe spaces can be put up, where girls can express themselves and state their problems and get empowered so that  they do not go astray,” she adds

Adding: “I was lucky I have a supportive mother, but for some other young girls, life begins at motherhood in that you will need school fees, food for your child, someone to take care of the child with no support at all.”

Kajiado Greenland Girls School co-founder Purity Gikunda knows too well how important sex education in schools is, to enlighten teenagers about themselves and their surroundings.

After seeing the challenges that young mothers go through, she says the idea to start a secondary school, which houses teenage mothers and their children, was born.

Gikunda is a social worker and in her line of duty, she would register women and youth to get Government funding through Uwezo and youth funds.

She says young girls would come in their numbers to register so that they can get money but did not have identity cards to access the loans. “I started talking to them, they said they wanted to start their own businesses. But with no identity cards and now with children, I felt the need to give them a second chance to pursue their education and we started planning how they can get back to school,” she says.

In 2018, she launched a programme for teenage mothers and started with 10 girls and word spread fast and today, there are 150 of them, but as at last week, over 900 were on the waiting list.

“I believe that if these girls were taught comprehensive sex education in school, things would be different because some of these girls find themselves doing things out of peer pressure because no one has prepared them mentally on the outcome of things they do,” she says.

She continues: “I normally talk to them in a direct way, I tell them that if they indulge in early or premarital sex they will get pregnant. It is high time we learn to tell these girls how babies are made. The community also needs to be loud and the earlier they are taught in primary school the better because right now, girls are starting to menstruate even at the age of 10.

Hiding under the carpet

She says there is need for policies to be made to adopt new system of sex education from primary schools. “If we wait for them to go to Class Eight so that we can start to teach them, we are misleading them, it should at least start from Grade Four. No matter how much we try to hide this under the carpet, it is happening so we are not helping,” she affirms.

Coming against the backdrop of International Day of the Girl Child, Journalists For Human Rights (JHR) Gender Media Trainer, Mercy Muthoni says teenagers need to be empowered on issues surrounding sex. “We take cognisant of the crucial role the media plays in amplifying the rights of girls. The media has a fundamental responsibility to highlight issues affecting the holistic development,” she says.

Muthoni says the rise in cases of teenage pregnancies, which has been highlighted by the media, can to some extent be attributed to a lack of comprehensive sex education in schools.

Debate around Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) has polarised stakeholders, but she opines that girls have a right to information on sexuality, to enable them make informed decisions on their bodies.

She says sexual curiosity has led many girls into teenage pregnancies and this is as a result of lack of information, thus, age-appropriate CSE should be included in the school curriculum. “Growing up, I remember our schools used to organise guiding and counseling sessions where we would be taught on some of changes in our bodies we should expect to happen. After that, we would be told what to do, and this information was instrumental in opening up to what was happening to our bodies. Afterwards, we would be given free sanitary pads,” she explains.

Opinion is however divided on whether or not CSE should be taught in schools.

In August, for instance, Catholic bishops decried what they termed as attempts to mischievously introduce in Grade Seven, saying some of the content is explicit and inappropriate for learners at that level.

The Kenya Catholic Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB), led by Rev Paul Kariuki Njiru urged the Ministry of Education to immediately recall the inclusion of reproductive health strand in all Grade Seven books.

Njiru, who is also the Commission for Education and Religious Education (CERE) Chairman, said they are concerned that the content not only sexualizes learning environment for minors but will also be the biggest contributor to high rates of teenage pregnancies and abortion.

He said they have sampled a few books targeted at teaching Grade Seven learners and noted a worrying trend in terms of content.

According to the bishops, the permissive framing of the curriculum and design itself have allowed room for exploitation and abuse by publishers to introduce CSE.