Teen sex rolls back gains in war on Aids

HIV home-testing Kit. Children as young as eight are actively engaged in sex, a scenario likely to be frustrating efforts to reduce HIV infections and early pregnancies. Photo/FILE

What you need to know:

  • According to the county profile of all 47 counties, up to 60 per cent of boys and girls aged 15 and below in Nyanza’s Homa Bay have started sexual encounters. It means six in every 10 youngsters have had their first sex — sex debut.
  • The report shows that children from Rift Valley’s Samburu County are also launching their sexual encounters early, with nearly six in every 10 having their sex debut before the age of 15. In all, 80 per cent of the children start sex before the age of 18.

Children as young as eight are actively engaged in sex, a scenario likely to be frustrating efforts to reduce HIV infections and early pregnancies.

In a new report, the government has uncovered details showing that more than half of the children in some counties are starting their sexual encounters before the age of 15.

According to the county profile of all 47 counties, up to 60 per cent of boys and girls aged 15 and below in Nyanza’s Homa Bay have started sexual encounters. It means six in every 10 youngsters have had their first sex — sex debut.

This is much earlier than the period officially classified as the reproductive age for females, which ranges between 15 and 49 years.

Usually, the government has been encouraging females, and males, to delay their sex debut as this can lessen teenage pregnancies and lower the chance of young unexposed children getting infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Stunned by the high numbers of children having an early sex debut, the chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Health Rachael Nyamai said the trend was worrying and promised that MPs would do everything to reverse the trend.

“The situation is bad and as the elected leaders we need to act urgently,” said the Kitui South MP at a meeting organised by the National Council for Population and Development last week to discuss the country’s population growth trends.

According to the counties’ report, nine in every 10 teenagers below the age of 18 in Homa Bay have had their first sex. Only one in every 10 youngster in the country is capable of delaying their first sex encounter until they turn 18, the age when they are officially adults.

The report shows that children from Rift Valley’s Samburu County are also launching their sexual encounters early, with nearly six in every 10 having their sex debut before the age of 15. In all, 80 per cent of the children start sex before the age of 18.

Ranked third among counties where children have an early sex debut is Narok, another Rift Valley county, followed by Migori and Kisumu, both in Nyanza.

Prevalence rates in Nyanza are highest, ranging from 13 to 28 per cent in the entire region’s population, according to results of a recently launched Kenya Aids Indicator Survey preliminary report, 2012.

Homa Bay County is the region with the highest HIV prevalence rates.