Winnie Omar And Ibrahim Oruko

Jane is a 15-year-old Form Three student in Meru and a mother of one. Her daughter, Wangui, is two years old.

Jane’s mother, Catherine Wanja, still painfully and tearfully recalls that time, two years ago when her daughter lost her innocence.

"She was only 13 when this happened. She had just sat her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations and we were looking for money to take her to secondary school."

Jane met a man who promised to give her a life that every girl dreams of. She eloped with him to Nyahururu where they started living as man and wife. Within no time, Jane was expecting a baby. Her ‘husband’, who had promised her everlasting love, turned into a ‘beast’ and started battering her every day.

"Luckily, she safely gave birth to a bouncing baby girl," Wanja says, cuddling her granddaughter Wambui.

"It took us one year to find Jane after she disappeared. You cannot imagine the agony we underwent," Wanja recalls.

Luckily for her parents, one of Jane’s friends knew the man she had eloped with and revealed the couple’s whereabouts. They traced them to Nyahururu and brought her and her daughter home. Now Jane is in school and her daughter is under her grandmother’s loving care.

Remjus Omukuba, a Nairobi resident, lifts his arms to the heavens in thanksgiving.

"I thank God," he says. "I am lucky to have been spared such adversity."

Throughout his fatherhood, the 52-year-old father of four — three sons and a daughter — has never engaged his children on matters of sex and sexuality. And he wouldn’t do it today.

"As a family we have regular sessions where we talk about issues but sex has never been on the agenda. It was taboo in my childhood and still is," he states. He is lucky his children turned out well despite this lack of advice from their father.

Omukuba’s attitude to sex education is not atypical. Yet, available evidence suggests many problems affecting the youth today are those associated with early and unprotected sexual activity. Parents and children are not talking about sex and its implications such as teenage pregnancy and HIV/Aids among others.

And now a blame game is in force. Youths blame everybody but themselves. They accuse parents of only talking when things have gone awry. Girls accuse teachers of sexually molesting them. Parents blame the government for outlawing caning that has spawned indiscipline among the youths while doing little to regulate the media, notorious for lurid adverts, programmes and pornography that influence youths into early sex. They also blame materialism.

"You give your daughter Sh500 for personal items. Sometimes it is not enough. Then she meets a man who offers her Sh1,000 to spend as she wishes. Tell me, who is she going to listen to?" asks Wanja.

"The time will come when this man will ask for sex as payment for all that money and the girl will not hesitate because she wants the good life," Wanja explains.

Charles Mbengi, the District Children’s Officer, Meru North District, supports Wanja’s argument.

"Money is the bait used by men to lure young girls into their beds," he says.

According to Mbengi, many underage girls have turned to prostitution in the search for ever-elusive comfort.

Diana, a Form Two student at Nkuene Girls’ High School in Meru says family background and social class go hand in hand. Students who come from poor backgrounds are looked down upon by those from well off families.

"No girl wants to belong to the poorest class and will do anything to be able to afford some of the things rich students have such as expensive soaps and lotions. She will even have sex with a man as long as he provides her with money that a parent cannot afford," says Diana.

Sheila Karani, 21, a marketing student in Nairobi says the media and entertainment industry has through music, programmes and adverts played a big role in pushing the youths into early sex, even though she believes parents and teachers must take their fair share of blame.

"The timing of some programmes like soaps is injurious to the moral development of the youths," she says.

Pornographic material is also readily available.

"This magazine was found in one of the students’ boxes during a check-up," says Mrs Eunice Maeke, Principal of Nkuene Girl’s High School holding up a magazine containing nude pictures and other erotic illustrations.

The availability of drugs and alcohol that lower inhibitions has also been blamed for increased teen sexual activity.

"High school students have become more daring than ever and frequent bars and nightclubs at an alarming rate," says Mbenji.

Morris Ondiechi, 23, blames peer pressure and lack of parental guidance as the key causes of teen sex. "My own father has never discussed matters of sex with me, how do you expect the teacher to do it?" he poses.

Students at Nkuene agree.

"What example do you think children get from parents who take them out to nightclubs and misbehave?" asks Vicky.

Maeke says parents have abandoned their parental obligations.

"They are busy looking for money. They have left sex education to teachers and domestic workers who obviously are not up to the task," she says.

However, Wanja refutes these claims, saying parents are doing their duty in teaching their children about sex.

"We teach them, but they don’t want to listen. They think we are old and our advice is outdated. Tell your daughter that pepper is hot and she will not believe it until she tastes it and gets burned. It is the same with sex," she says.

The chairman of Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers (Kuppet) Akello Misori says lack of sex education or counselling in schools the culprit but warns against blaming teachers. He argues teachers have no instruments to stop students from sexually interacting outside school hours.

"Sex education is not part of the curriculum and teachers can only be blamed if they teach it wrongly," he asserts.

To start with, he says, teachers have no content to act as a guide in teaching morality.

Besides, he points out, focusing on sex among the youths in isolation is a vile attempt at sidestepping a serious problem in the society. He proposes that issues such as poverty that have proved key in promoting immorality must be addressed urgently because "we don’t wish to have children who go to school to die because of irresponsible sex."

He wants the government to facilitate an education policy that doesn’t shy away from formulating sex education curriculum to give youth the information they need to stop recklessness and offer them life protective measures.

Some schools have stepped up to the plate and incorporated sex education into their curriculum. A programme called the Kenya Adolescence Reproductive Health Programme teaches students about sex and reproductive health.

"Students have a forum to air their thoughts and share their experiences, while getting informed about how to take care of themselves and waiting for the right time to have sex. Nothing is left out. We want the girls to learn everything," says Maeke.

In addition, her school hires counsellors from time to time to come and talk to the students on various issues regarding their sexuality.

Many schools are doing this and it’s about time too parents put away the cloak of shyness and started talking about sex with their children.

But the buck must stop with the teens themselves, especially girls. While it is ‘cool’ to want to be like others or to look beautiful, it is uncool to use their bodies as tools to get what they want.