Central Kenya men have highest number of lovers: report

Men in Kenya have three times as many sexual partners during their lifetime than women do, a new study shows.

The men have an average of 6.3 sexual partners, compared to 2.1 for women, according to preliminary results from the Kenya Demographic Health Survey (KDHS) 2008-2009 released recently.

The report says men from Central Province have the highest average number of sexual partners (8.3) followed by those from Western Province with 8.1 partners.

Sexual partners

Men from Coast Province reported having an average of 7.8 partners, while their Rift Valley Province counterparts had a mean number of sexual partners of 6. Men from Nairobi and Nyanza provinces had 5.6 each.

The study, conducted at the end of last year and early this year sampled 2,633 male respondents. Women respondents had a much lower average number of partners. Those in Central Province recorded the highest number at 2.7 partners over a lifetime.

Women from Western and Eastern provinces had an average of 2.3 partners each in a lifetime. The report says married women and men were far less likely to report having two or more partners than those who had never married or are divorced. Those separated or widowed seldom reported having multiple partners.

The findings also revealed that people in their 40s are less likely to engage in risky sexual activity. Most sexually active Kenyans engage in unprotected sex, even when they had multiple partners, according to the researchers. Of those who had multiple partners, 32 per cent of women and 37 per cent of men reported using a condom during their last sexual intercourse.

The report says men were more likely to use condoms than women. Thirty-five per cent of women and 62 per cent of men who had sexual intercourse with a person who was not their husband, wife or cohabiting partner in the year before the survey reported using a condom in their last sexual intercourse.

Domestic violence against women is still rampant in Kenya, the report says. A large number of married, separated or divorced women reported they had been physically or sexually violated by their husbands and partners.

Of those sampled in the study which covered the past five years, 39 per cent of the women aged 15-49 years confirmed they had either been physically molested or sexually violated by their male partners. A total of 4,047 women were sampled by the researchers.

Of the affected respondents, 32 per cent said they were victims of such violence in the year preceding the survey. The survey showed that older women were more likely the younger women to report cases of sexual and physical violence.

Sexual violence

“Rural women are more likely than urban women to be victims of physical or sexual violence in marriage,” says the report, which also shows regional disparities in the cases of violence. Nyanza and Western provinces recorded the highest number of cases of abuse.

In Nyanza, 54 per cent of the women said they had been physically or sexually abused, while 45 per cent reported experiencing harassment over the past year.

Western Province had the second- highest reporterd cases of violence against women; 50.4 per cent of women there said they had been physically or sexually abused. Of the total number of 423 respondents from Western, 36.9 per cent said they had experienced the violence in the year before the survey.

According to the survey, women with secondary education are less likely to be physically or sexually violated than those with less education. “Women that bear the brunt of violence more than others are those with primary incomplete level of education,” says the report.

Divorced women

Divorced or separated women reported higher levels of violence. The study found that cases of female circumcision had declined from 49 per cent among women aged between 45 years and 49 years to 15 per cent of those aged between 15 years and 19 years. North Eastern Province reported the highest prevalence, with 98 per cent of the women respondents reporting that they were circumcised.