Causes of Teenage Pregnancies in Kenya

Finding out you’re pregnant when you’re a teenager can be very intimidating, particularly if the pregnancy wasn’t planned. Kenya to be among the countries that have been reported to be having large numbers of adolescent pregnancies globally.

Worldwide, 7.3 million of the births are by girls between the age of 15 and 19 years of which two million births of this are by girls under the age of 15. Of the two million births, 90 per cent of them are already in marriage, revealing that girls are being married off at very tender age.

Kenya contributes to this percentage by having 103 in every 1000 pregnancies being attributed to girls between 15 and 19 years. The impact of early motherhood has been stated to cause depression, isolation, stigma and even death.

Read: Has Society Given too much Focus to the Girl Child?

The uncomfortable picture that emerges in teenage pregnancies is that 70000 adolescents in developing countries die each year from complications during pregnancy and child birth. Some of the causes of teenage pregnancy include the following:

Peer pressure:

Most young people trust their peers and are easily influenced to engage in sexual encounters as a way of belong to a group. This may not be spelled out as a ritual but is expected of every member of the group. This is one of the main factors leading to increased cases of teenage pregnancies in the country.

Rape:

Teenage girls are the most abused age group of women. Rape at this age is in most cases by a person who the girl trusts. This can be a male relative, including biological fathers and step fathers, teachers and domestic workers.

Cultural Practices:

Some communities in Kenya marry off young girls from age 10 to men old enough to be their parents. At this tender age, these girls have not been exposed to any form of sex education and have no idea of what is expected of them.  Some communities that still cling to FGM encourage the girls to engage into early sex as a way of “testing their tools” before being married off. Such practices lead to cases of teenage pregnancies.

Broken families:

Lack of a good family set up s very important especially to teenage girls. This is because during this stage of their lives, they need people around them who will be guiding and mentoring them as they will be experiences changes both physical and mentally. If the family seem to be in an unstable state, this may force some of them to seek security from outside, where they may end up into the hands of men who will impregnate them.

Poverty:

Due to poverty, girls are forced by their parents to sell their bodies as a source of revenue for the family, just to cater for their basic needs.

Lack of sexual awareness:

There is a big difference between the society we were brought up in and the current society in terms of sexual awareness. Most of teenage girls have little or even no sex education at all, thus they try out things out of curiosity, thus ending up pregnant. Sex education is very important to them as it will be a guide that will help them cope with the pressure that comes up with the teenage life. Sex education is supposed to be carried out by the whole society at large, starting from home, school and religion.

Abuse of alcohol and drugs:

Young people are abusing drugs rampantly and of course this will increase the sexual activities. This is a major contributor to increased cases of under age and unwanted pregnancies.

Article by Vera Shawiza.