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All it takes is a click of a button, or a bit of ‘lunch money’ and your child in primary school will be watching adult content on mobile phones, in cyber cafes, a laptop or DVD player.
Kenya National Association of Parents (Knap) Secretary-General warned that not only are school children watching hardcore pornography, but they are also exploring the ‘tactics’ they discover in blue movies.
This should concern parents following revelations that one adolescent is infected with HIV every two minutes and that almost a third of new HIV infections in Kenya occur among adolescents.
“We fought pornographic magazines sometime back but our children are now accessing hardcore adult content easily through the Internet at home, in cyber cafes and on mobile phones. The problem is so rampant that some students in secondary schools have ‘specialized’ in lesbian and gay pornographic videos,” charges KNAP secretary general.
Following some allegations, two headteachers who had granted us interviews called the next day and said they had been warned by their seniors not to speak about it as it would spoil the reputation of their schools in the city.
NIGHT STUDIES
Ndunda warns that the problem is now so big that students who are hooked on porn end up getting addicted to masturbation both at school and at home, or engage in sex with multiple partners right beneath their parents’ noses.
He said children who have their own rooms at home conveniently watch blue movies regularly as parents assume they are busy studying.
“We have visited many schools in and outside Nairobi and the script is the same. When we win their trust they confess that they engage in orgies after watching pornographic videos sneaked into school. They masturbate, perform oral sex and engage in homosexuality,” Ndunda revealed, adding that “in some cases, the schools and parents are in the dark but in other instances, the school management is aware but fears that taking action would ‘spoil’ the name of the school. They are forced to bear with it or expel the kids over unrelated allegations.”
Kenya Primary Schools Head Teachers Association Chairman says city students who use matatus daily are exposed to lurid content and some who have affairs with matatu crews access blue movies and then proceed to share them with school mates.
A Kenyatta University psychology student who is writing a PhD thesis on ‘Pornography viewing and aggressive sexual behavior’ observes that most youths get initiated into pornography at the ages of 13-18 years.
PROSTITUTES IN UNIFORM
“Porn addicts in universities were exposed while at a tender age. They have to watch porn at least once a day,” says Wamathai.
Cyber café operators interviewed said it is common to find minors logging onto adult sites to watch or download and save on portable devices. A cyber owner in Eastlands says the most they can do is scold and chase them away, which is “the reason we keep walking round to survey. We don’t have software that can prohibit visits to such sites,” explained one cyber café operator along Moi Avenue.
Studies carried out in Mukuru slums, Korogocho, Huruma, Dandora and Kayole show that some primary school girls aged below 12 years are avid porn consumers seeking ‘tactics to satisfy older men who support them financially’.
She says that studies need to be carried out in upmarket areas where children have more access to the Internet and the cash to buy blue movies.
NATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVALS CDS?
On the streets, the vendors hawking CDs, DVDs and pirated movies conceal porn videos between ‘legal’ merchandise and know who to trust and who not to. Such videos go for Sh50 to Sh100 but the local ones are pricey, going for about Sh200.
“They use code language to describe them and they know who wants to buy porn and who is out to arrest them. They have schools kids on their payroll who market and supply the goods to fellow students,” a street vendor privy to the business says.
They are labelled as action movies or collections of songs, but are inscribed with a simple word or letter to differentiate them from the others for buyers and sellers to spot easily.
“If a parent goes through their children’s movie library looking for a DVD or CD with a cover of naked people, they are dead wrong! Porn could be concealed as the ‘National Music Festival’ or even ‘short stories’ the vendor reveals.
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