To end 'triple threat', listen to teen mothers
Teenage girls face the triple threat of unplanned pregnancies, gender-based violence and HIV infection.
What you need to know:
- Triple threat threaten the progress of adolescents and young people in Kenya.
- At the Reproductive Health Network Kenya's (RHNK) scientific conference, the call to end triple threat was repeated.
If you are unfamiliar with the Kenyan government's End Triple Threat campaign, allow me to bring you up to speed.
The triple threat refers to new HIV cases, sexual and gender-based violence, and adolescent pregnancies, which all threaten the progress of adolescents and young people in Kenya.
The hashtags #EndTripleThreat and #KomeshaMimbaZaUtotoni (loosely translated into "stop teenage pregnancies") have been the rallying call used to drum up support for this noble campaign, with the messages intended to reach a nationwide audience.
So far, this is a demonstration of government commitment, and this is commendable, given how little faith we have in a government determined to keep us in a chokehold with the recently punitive taxes passed in the Finance Bill, 2024.
At the Reproductive Health Network Kenya's (RHNK) scientific conference on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights held last week in partnership with the Ministry of Health's Division of Reproductive and Maternal Health, the call to end the triple threat was reiterated at every opportunity.
During the conference, I attended a side event by the Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health (Ticah), which gave me a front-seat view of how much remains to be done regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights for teenage mums and youth in general.
The event was titled “Her Voice Her Power: Girls at the Centre of Change," and it was facilitated by a team of teenage mothers who found refuge in Ticah’s initiatives.
Tina*, a young mother of two who had both her children in her teenage years, narrated to the participants how poverty drove her to the edge of desperation.
She had been considering taking her life and that of her children to end their suffering when one of her friends introduced her to Aunty Jane.
One call to Aunty Jane snatched her from the jaws of death. Aunty Jane is a toll-free sexual and reproductive health and rights counselling hotline accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week in English and Swahili.
The teenage mums appealed for the government's support in accessing comprehensive health education, youth-friendly health services, supportive policies and legislation, mental health and emotional support, and building young mothers' agency.
All these have either been sorely missing or inadequate, so the government cannot purport to end the triple threat without fixing such yawning gaps.
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Viva Gen Zs, Viva!
There’s never been a time in Gen Z's history when they’ve attracted such wrath, fear, and admiration—wrath and fear from a government that’s supposed to protect them, and admiration from Kenyans from all walks of life, in relation to their actions of protest and rejection of the Finance Bill, 2024.
As a millennial and mother of a generation Alpha, my heart bleeds for the innocent lives forever lost or changed, even as it swells with pride.
*Name changed to protect the identity of the victim.
The writer comments on social and gender topics (@FaithOneya; [email protected]).
