Train your children the ethos and ethics the community expects from them and they will never disappoint.
Dating back to 90s, raising kids was a communal affair. The responsibility was never solely bestowed to biological parents. The peace and tranquility shared among the community members made them live as a unit. A family was simply a microcosm of that community and we could traverse one household to another without fret.
Any child that flouted the set rules used to be caught on the receiving end; any parent could punish you. Getting back home , pain was again inflicted on you cos the power of the rod ruled, it wasnt spared.
But with digitisation and cropping up of digital parents, with sprouting up of new millennium babies, morals have been thrown to the dogs. Everything literally changed and consequently, most of the ill-mannered occurrences popping up, are fruits of bad seeds sown by most of the new era parents in raising their children.
To begin with, times are getting harder daily. Our country is in a state of economic crisis with basic commodities' prices hiked, most citizens are grappling with this crisis to fend for their families. It even pans out that a majority are jobless, simply juggling with this and that in lieu of trapping fish in the course of their hustle and bustle to get a meal for the family. Surprisingly, these menial jobs are even hard to find!!. Through these stress and strains, some parents opt to leave their kids at home without anyone to take care of them.
And as we speaking, the life of the girl child is on everyone's lips. The statistical data released by the ministry of Education bearing the number of teenage pregnancies due to the prolonged holiday at home from the worldwide adverse effects of the pandemic is hair raising. The wave of teenage pregnancies is indeed shocking. Where did the rain start beating us??, what are we not doing right like it was way back in 90s??, just to whet your appetite and quench your thirst for this new normal, the reasons to the alarming cases in teen pregnancies are as outlined below;
Poverty
They say that poverty is somewhat permanent whereas being broke is short term right?, but I believe with the inception of the Corona Virus pandemic that has taken the whole world by storm, most companies have sacked their employees; some even rendering them redundancy. Local industries ain't in operational, Small and Medium Enterprises too shut down. This was done purposely to mitigate, curb and cushion the spread of the virus.
As a result, it left all and sundry either with pay cuts in salaries or no salaries at all. Parents were obliged to restructure their expenditures lest they strain in providing for the families.
The abject poverty some families are wallowing into forced them out of their houses to scout for ways of landing a job despite the curfew and lockdown rules. As they're out on the job hunting spree atleast to get a penny or food to fend for the family the whole day, the eagle eyed sexual predators are out eyeing for their girls. Being naive and in need of basics like food and the sanitary pads or even undies they need most, they fall prey to these predators with least resistance.
A story was even told where some gullible grand parents who I consider old-fashioned are easily duped and sell their grand daughters for a night as long as a huge check is fished out in return.
Some of this girls are caught up in circumstances they cant really control. They are crying out in silence cos it seems, a string of threats are normally directed to them to always keep the mouth shut. They cry and weep in silence. Parents should be wary and check out on this.
Peer Pressure
"A beautiful tree with a rotten root is always destined to fall", is an adage my mum constantly refers to. Most girls are beautiful. They were blessed with dark-skins, light skins and intelligence. All this is beautiful. We have some characters though, despite the beauty and brains, an element of rachetness exist in them.
These are ladies whose lives been wired along material things. They flaunt their classy and designer outfits to others, who have least clue on profiling. Sorry to say, behind this glamorous lifestyles the little girls are living, its either from their parents or some sponsorship programs initiated by aged men.
When Akinyi sees Anyango flamboyantly flaunting costly and appealing to the eye jewellery, clothing etc-she automatically drools over it and because she too want to stand out and impress, she might be duped into it. We all know nothing comes for free. Even the good air we breathe, I doubt if it's for free. I was born free but I'm being taxed on everything I buy. The surest way of this innocent girls with a zeal to impress yet they no have cash to foot the bill of everything they need is simply to sell themselves and it comes with a price!!, diseases or pregnancy.
Media
The role of the media has been pivotal to these too. Recently I lamented on the crop of budding artistes whose lyrical prowess is marred by obscene lyrics full of sexual innuendos. I was met with insults, tirade of expletives, name calling on how too yesterday I was and killing talents of the 'today's generation ', all directed at me.
The raunchy lyrics advocating for sex and rape coupled with skimpily dressed video vixens leaving nothing to imagination sums up how rotten the Z-generation is.
I'm rallying behind the Moral Cop Ezekiel Mutua not to lessen his stance, neither bow down till sanity is brought back. Otherwise what we are advancing at as a nation will all be Vanity. From the music videos on our TV screens, YouTube and other media sites, most of these are full of Pornographical content that need to be censored and filtered well before airing on our screens since they are the recipes to the pregnancies noted lately.
In as much as the CS Magoha wants all porn sites in Kenya blocked, let him start by rooting out these wannabe artists whose lyrics and visuals are centred around sex and sex and more sex.
Parenting
Am a teacher and a parent too. Teachers have apparently been on the receiving end for not instilling morals in the students, reason there has been a ballooning number of pregnancies. Teachers have a pivotal role of shaping the future of these kids, parents do too. It's not a one-sided affair. A teacher spends most of the time modelling a learner, taking them through syllabus coverage, guiding and counselling sessions, religious growth through CU sessions but once they get home, parents have to cement this so our children have best values in their upbringing.
In most cases this doesn't happen.
Parents are not open to chat out with their children on sex matters. The more parents remain mum and mute on this issue, the more the ship continues to sink. At the age of 15yrs, a girl is already in possession of so many materials linked to sex and as a parent, it's time to lay bare what's been kept under the carpet for them to know the truth about sex and the effects. It's time to unearth the long kept secrets to these adolescents before a storm of shame as regards to pregnancy sweeps us.
The predisposing factors to teen pregnancy comes in multitudes, I cant list them out all. But a remedy to this got to be found.
What then as a country, is supposed to be done to curb this menace, sanitize this vice and a cancer that is killing the girl child??
From a few people we been striking conversations with, this malady can best be rooted out if and only if the following is done:
(a) The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development(KICD) should inculcate in the current curriculum, Sex Education as a unit in colleges and Schools so that Teachers study it and in turn take learners through it. This will be the first litmus test and matrix to measure how best the upsurge in pregnancy cases exponentially shoots down.
(b) The government should put more stringent measures in addition to 15yrs jail time to all perpetrators. They should be nabbed and gaoled. Incidences been reported where local arrangements between parents are reached at to cushion cases from reaching the authorities. This is breaching of the law and if found, the parties involved should be held accountable.
(c) Media houses should censure the soap operas and movies they air. Anything that compromises set morals should never be in their gallery. The moral Cop should not bow down to criticism aimed at him for killing talent. He got to be a man of steel with a firm stand. Furthermore, anything that oozes from their mouth should solely champion morality and demonize premature pregnancies.
(d) Parents should know that a problem shared, is half solved already or rather, a thief whipped, is a thief half killed. Let them confide in their kids that anything can be shared. Its absurd that most parents love their electronic gadgets more than the children hence spend most of their times glued to them. Any programme rated PG on your telly is suitable to viewers under certain age groups. Consider the viewers discretion on all programs.
In a nut shell, teenage pregnancy is here with us. We can flatten the curve and have zero cases of pregnancies if we zero in aforementioned sentiments.
We would like this generation to be made of heroes not zeroes. Let's team up together, hold hands and rally behind this campaign of saving the vulnerable girl child from this menace.
Let's not shelve any incidence of rape or teen pregnancies. Speak out, let the voice be heard to save the girl child.
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This article is the writer's opinion and is subject to both positive and negative criticism. If there's a cliche or point you feel I missed, share with me at:
Email: bonfacesumba84@gmail.com
Twiter:@BonfaceSumba1
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