How Meru County is responding to rising teenage pregnancies

Meru County DG Linda Koome. [Screen Grab] Meru County has intensified efforts to curb teenage pregnancies, even as new data ranks it among the counties with the highest prevalence. A report by Kenya Vital Statistics placed Meru second nationally with 17.4 per cent of teenage pregnancies in 2024 among girls aged 19 and below. Narok County led with 17.5 per cent, while Mandera and Wajir recorded the lowest at 3.6 and 4.2 per cent, respectively. "Nationally, 11.3 per cent of all registered live births occurred to teenage mothers. Twenty-six counties had a proportion of registered live births above the national average," read the report. Meru Deputy Governor Linda Koome attributed the crisis to cultural practices, poverty, and risky environments that expose children to exploitation. "Some children are born in poor economic backgrounds. Their parents are probably brewing chang'aa. This means that this child is exposed to adults who are fully inebriated and cannot think in their right mind. Also, some end up serving these people, and what happens next is they end up pregnant," Koome said on Spice FM on Tuesday, September 30. Linda Kiome: We're partnering with organizations to create safe houses for girls affected by teen pregnancies. Many come from poor backgrounds, some even in homes where chang'aa is brewed, unsafe environments for any child.#TheSituationRoom Hosts: @dennisaseto @nduokoh... pic.twitter.com/HaxTOpkZcH - SpiceFM (@SpiceFMKE) September 30, 2025 Despite the figures, the DG noted that the county is making progress. She said Meru has partnered with organisations to implement interventions, among them the construction of safe houses in Igembe, one of the areas hardest hit. She also highlighted a county-led fundraiser to provide sanitary towels to school-going girls, citing cases where lack of access pushed some into transactional sex. "We have also partners, where we fundraise to get funds to buy sanitary towels in school...we want to ensure it's a continuous process, and to have proper guidance and counseling so they understand what is going on," she said. The deputy governor added that legal aid clinics will also be rolled out to sensitise communities that impregnating a girl under 18 amounts to defilement and carries criminal liability. Last year, state and non-state actors also linked the high prevalence of child marriages in Meru to persistent Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Buuri Children Officer Mutuma Kinoti stated that the practice is still perpetuated by community members. "It is members of the community who are doing it. You cannot fully understand how they manage to carry it out," he said, warning perpetrators and their accomplices. Kinoti pointed out Tigania East and Buuri West as hotspots, where cases of defilement, often involving fathers, stepfathers, uncles, and neighbours, remain high. Between January and May last year, Meru hospitals recorded two hundred and seventy-seven (277) pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14. In the same period, 4,360 girls aged 10 to 19 fell pregnant across the county, with Igembe Central, Igembe South, and Tigania sub-counties recording the highest numbers. A separate report by the National Syndemic Diseases Control Council (NSDCC) showed that at least 15,000 schoolgirls in Meru have given birth and dropped out of school. In some hospitals, up to 50 per cent of maternal care seekers were teenagers, with 270 girls aged ten to 14 undergoing caesarean sections in 2023.

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How Meru County is responding to rising teenage pregnancies

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