Health PS was wrong: Kenya not third in global teen pregnancies
The 2021 Economic Survey by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics showed a total of 332,208 girls aged 10-19 years got pregnant in 2020,a drop from 396,929 the previous year.
What you need to know:
- Health Principal Secretary Susan Mochache last July, made an assertion that Kenya has the third highest teenage pregnancies worldwide.
- Available data say otherwise.
- The PS's team has since clarified that one of the agencies had provided her with erroneous data, and the mistake has since been rectified.
Claim
On July 5, 2022, Health Principal Secretary Susan Mochache made an assertion that shocked Kenyans. The matter was widely shared on social media and discussed in mainstream media.
In her speech while addressing anti-teenage pregnancy advocates at Mathare Youth Sports Association grounds in Nairobi County, PS Mochache said, “Kenya has the third highest teenage pregnancies worldwide.”
Is this true?
Background
The teenage pregnancy and motherhood rate in Kenya stands at 18.1 per cent, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS, 2014).
This is deduced from the calculation of the percentage of women aged 15-19 who have begun childbearing.
This percentage, therefore, implies that about one in every five teenage girls aged 15-19, have either had a live birth, or are pregnant with their first child, say National Council for Population and Development, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Choice4Change and African Institute for Development Policy in a joint undated policy brief.
The KDHS report showed that 15 per cent of girls aged 15-19 have already had a birth, and three per cent are pregnant with their first child.
And the percentage of girls who have begun childbearing increases rapidly with age, from about three per cent among those aged 15 to 40 per cent among those aged 19.
The 2021 Economic Survey by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics showed a total of 332,208 girls aged 10-19 years got pregnant in 2020,a drop from 396,929 in the previous year.
In 2021, the number declined to 317,582 according to this year’s Economic Survey,
Verification
The World Bank provides latest data on the adolescent fertility rate (births per 1,000 women aged 15-19).
And as of 2020, Kenya had 72 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19.
There are seven countries that have more than 130 births.
Niger leads with 177 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19, followed by Mali (162) and Equatorial Guinea (149).
Angola (143), Mozambique (142), Liberia (135) and Malawi (131), follow.
Further data from UNFPA shows 26 per cent of Kenya’s women aged 20-24, gave birth before age 18, thus, putting it among 40 countries with the heaviest burden of teenage pregnancy.
But it isn’t among the 15 countries with the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in the world, although 14 of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.
We reached out to PS Mochache to share the report from which she got the data. She promptly responded, referring us to Dr Ruth Laibon Masha, the chief executive officer at the National Aids Control Council (NACC). We reached out to her and by the time of going to press, she hadn’t shared the report.
But a consultant (whom background check shows he has worked with NACC) later called us.
He said he had been instructed by PS Mochache to inform us that the ranking did not exist.
He said one of the agencies had provided PS Mochache with erroneous data, having wrongfully ranked Kenya as so, and the mistake has since been rectified.
Verdict
The assertion that “Kenya has the third highest teenage pregnancies worldwide,” is, therefore, “false.”
