'Sex education in school is not all about bedroom matters!'

Elizabeth Okumu from The Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health (TICAH) an organisation spoke to breakfast presenter, Gidi on Wednesday, where she shed a light on the importance of introducing a sex education curriculum in Kenya.

This comes after alarming statistics showed that between 2016 and 2017, more than 300,000 girls aged between 10-19, were impregnated while in 2018 many KCSE candidates were expectant.

Another shocking stat showed that in Kilifi county alone, 14,000 teenagers are expectant as we speak.

According to Miss Okumu, the society needs to wake up and smell the coffee since the issue is escalating and it poses a negative impact on our kids and the nation at large.

There is a big problem based on the statistics. When we leave our children to experiment life by themselves then they make such mistakes because 14,000 teens in just one county (Kilifi) it’s a huge number! Okumu said.

She added; Question is; As a nation is it an issue we should discuss about or focus on things that will leave our young girls with no information?

These girls have no information about sexual reproductive health and right and that makes it hard for them to make healthy choices. So when they find themselves entangled in relationship issues, self esteem and getting to know themselves, they tend to lack control of their bodies.

According to statistics, these teens start being sexually active at a tender age where; They have sexuality challenges and they start getting advances from boys and they don’t know whether to say yes or no to them.

So what are the impacts of early pregnancies?

There are many dangers, there are the individual impacts as well as the economic impact which affects the nation.

This teen first of all can’t achieve her dreams and if she continues with her education in her mind she will be thinking about the child, what the child will eat and who is taking care of it and hence she can’t maximize her potential.

Do you advocate for sex education curriculum in Kenya?

There have been a lot of myths and misconceptions about sexuality education, it is not all about sex and it comprises a lot since it teaches children about our bodies. In Sex education we talk about growth, self esteem, gender based violence and menstruation which is not sex.

We talk about HIV/AIDS and we can see that the rate of new infections is ballooning among young people. So it is not about bedroom issues it’s called comprehensive sexuality education.

Listen to the interesting conversation below.