Schools suspend 11 pregnant students, blames boda boda riders

Two schools in Chepchoina Ward in Trans Nzoia County have suspended eleven pregnant teenagers.

The girls aged between 13-16 years are students at the Lutaso Primary and Lutaso Secondary schools.

Mr Tom Masika, the head teacher of the two schools, said the administration had to send the girls home after they realised that they were pregnant.

“Most of the perpetrators are boda boda riders who lured them with freebies and free rides,” said Mr. Masika.

Area Chief Richard Kirui decried the rise in teenage pregnancies, pointing an accusing finger at parents of affected girls for compromising prosecutions by soliciting for money from perpetrators.

The Deputy County Commissioner Peter Maina said a section of chiefs in the region have also developed the habit of mediating between the perpetrators and parents of the victims to obstruct justice.

“Any chief who will preside over any case of sexual defilement will face punitive measures because they are obstructing justice to gain financially,” Mr. Maina said in Kitale

Children affairs officials in the region promised to work jointly with the police to launch investigations to bring the perpetrators to justice.

“We are going to carry out though investigations to ensure those responsible for the pregnancies face the law,” said Kwanza Sub-County Children’s Officer Wilfred Asegere.

Church leaders also weighed in on the issue with the head of the Kitale Catholic Diocese Bishop Maurice Crowley saying there is a need for a different approach to deal with the vice that is a threat to the minors’ education.

He said moral decadence was playing a major role in fuelling the cases of sexual defilement of young girls with most of the perpetrators being addicts of explicit content from the internet.

“We are very much aware that the influence of pornographic content especially in learning centers owing to the advent of information technology has also fuelled these vices,” Bishop Crowley said.