Health Cabinet secretary nakhumicha says his ministry will not give condoms to underage kenyans asking them to abstain.
Speaking on the sidelines of the ongoing African Union Summit 2023 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in a video published by Nation on Sunday, the CS said that as a Christian woman, she advocates abstinence as a preventative measure against STDs and teen pregnancies.
In her speech, she said she is a devoted Christian and therefore advocates for abstinence among the youth, adding that despite condoms being used by other nations worldwide, Kenyan teenagers should abstain according to their solid Christian foundations.
Nakhumicha spoke at a joint African Union Development Agency-PEPFAR briefing to mark 20 years of collaboration to end HIV/AIDS as a public health threat in Africa and worldwide. Her remarks come just a week after the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Winnie Byanyima, urged Kenya to allow teenagers access to contraception.
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Byanyima, who was in the country on a State visit, stated that societal inequalities and injustices are fueling the HIV/AIDS pandemic and making certain groups of individuals, such as young women and adolescent girls, extremely vulnerable to HIV infection.
In a past interview, she noted that Increasing access isn’t just about putting clinics and making available contraceptives and that it’s about safe spaces where girls and young women can feel safe and have the privacy that they need and also have the choice of the method they want to protect themselves from infections, HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI’s).
Cases of teenage pregnancies have been on the rise in recent years bringing up the question of sex talk amongst the youth and the issue of contraceptives. an investigation reports that over 13000 girls drop out of school every year due to teenage pregnancy
