Tana Delta, where pregnant teens won’t reveal perpetrators

More than 20 girls aged between 14 and 18 years, in Tana Delta are at home pregnant or nursing new-borns.

Nation.Africa visited Kulesa village, where nine girls from Kulesa Primary School got babies recently, while others are due soon.

Emma Daso*, 17, has just delivered a bouncing baby boy. The firstborn in a family of four, has left her parents heartbroken after she delivered when her younger brother, the last born in the family, is barely a year old.

Emma says she met her predicament in Lamu when she visited her father during school holidays.

"The guy told me he was interested in me and, I fell for him; the rest is history," she says.

Body changes

In her words, the guy showered her with pleasant surprises whenever he visited.

Emma tells nation.africa that she only got intimate with the guy once and a few days later, travelled back to her native home.

Two months later, she started noticing changes in her body that got neighbours talking. By then, three other girls had similar symptoms, while two had been confirmed pregnant.

"They kept telling me I look pregnant, but I denied. My mother too, never listened to them as I told her I was okay. My man, on the other hand, had cut me off communication," she recounts.

Shock, however, hit her mother when she took her daughter to hospital where it was established she was two months pregnant. Emma now joined the string of school girls in the village that had been put in the family way.

Legal path

Her parents decided to nurture the pregnancy. Information about it spread all over the village and the local administration too, was aware.

"I was planning, with my man, on how to get an abortion but my parents countered the move. They sought to pursue the legal path for justice, which was not my choice," she narrates.

Emma refused to reveal, to the parents, the identity of the man responsible for her pregnancy, hence, they gave up and chose to focus on the matter at hand.

To teach her a lesson, they made her do a lot of work to enable her fend for the baby she was carrying when it comes. They gave her work that exposed her to the community including her peers.

She became the talk of the village. Parents told their daughters to stay away from her.

Victimised and stigmatised

“I was victimised and stigmatised. At one point when I was six months pregnant, I planned to visit a private hospital in Malindi for an abortion, but my cousin advised me against it," she says.

Emma's mother is still disappointed but has had to come to terms with the daughter's situation. She blames herself for ignoring the signs of her daughter's notorious behaviour.

"I believe my girl started losing it at the church where she would go for choir practice; that is where she started having sex according to rumours that reached me then, but she kept denying," she says.

According to the mother, neighbours had spotted the girl in compromising situations with boys several times. Unlike other girls who have resolved not to go back to school after giving birth, Emma will be returning to school as the mother helps with the baby.

Gone missing

Christine Melisa*, 15, is also due any time now.

Her boyfriend, a Form Two student from a local secondary school has since gone missing after he learnt of a plot to have him arrested.

Christine, the fourth born in a family of six, fell into the trap the day she went to pick money for sanitary towels from her boyfriend.

"I was in a difficult place. I was using rags while my friends had sanitary pads; my parents could not afford," she says.

Her parents demanded to know who was responsible and just like her mates, she refused to reveal the identity, instead notifying him to flee.

"They wanted him arrested, I would be left here with no one to help me raise the baby," she says.

According to her, jail would not serve the best course for the unborn child hence, she rescued her boyfriend. 

Case withdrawn

“Twenty five years in jail then what would I tell my child when he grows; that I consented for the father to be jailed? I can't explain that and no one will be there to explain on my behalf," she says.

In Wema village, parents of Hamisa Swaleh* want a case against the man who impregnated their daughter withdrawn.

Mr Josephat Jillo says his daughter, a Form Two student, wishes not to pursue the case, and has been threatening to flee from home to follow her boyfriend who fled after learning of a crackdown planned against him.

“The boy’s family has negotiated with us and are willing to help raise the child. Our daughter has taken us through a lot, from protests to chaos; it is better solved peacefully, she loves the man and they are in constant communication," he says.

More than 150 school going girls in Tana Delta are expectant, with more than half the number being in primary school says a report by Moving the Goal Post (MTG).

Financial needs

MTG project coordinator at the delta Esther Baya, says some parents have pushed their daughters to trade their dignity to cater for their financial needs.

"Some are falling into the trap, in the line of business, with grown-up men and they only raise an alarm when they realise they have been duped," she says.

Interestingly, none of the perpetrators has been traced with the victims keeping their identities top secret.

Haki Africa's Abdul Malik, says most of the girls were impregnated by the police and General Service Unit (GSU) officers camping nearby.

"There are parents housed by the officers - GSU, KDF and Administration Police; the parents are very much aware, but have made it a safeguarded secret," he says.

Parents' role

The local chief, however, blames parents for the rising number of teenage pregnancies and for tolerating the vice.

He says parents have neglected their responsibility and found comfort in their daughters’ wayward ways.  

"It is not possible that all pregnant girls and their parents do not know where the people responsible are, it is not realistic," he says.

The chief says despite the poverty that drives the girls to the ends, parents have a role to play in curtailing the emerging trend.

The administrator further reveals that the parents seem contented with the prevailing situation hence, join in negotiating cases of defilement instead of going legal.

Kulesa Primary School deputy head teacher, however, says the school has resolved to look for its own and bring them back.

"We will make sure they all come back to school; we shall take them through counselling before admitting them back in class," he says.

Meanwhile, local leaders have appealed to NGOs and the government to embark on a sex education movement in the county.