Health Cabinet Secretary (CS) Susan Nakhumicha has left netizens talking after she said that she would not allow contraceptives to be issued to underage girls in Kenya.
Speaking to the Nation in an interview on the sidelines of the ongoing African Union Summit 2023 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the CS said that by virtue of her faith which teaches abstinence, she believes that young people should be taught to abstain.
“I am mama kanisa’, we have to teach our adolescents to abstain, I believe that with a firm Christian foundation, they will learn to abstain,” the CS who is a devoted Catholic said.
Nakhumicha added that although condoms have been used across the world, her view is that Kenyan teenagers should be able to abstain with what she called “firm Christian foundations”.
“Where they cannot abstain, then of course, condoms have been said as one of the ways to use protection. But I believe with firm Christian foundations that our adolescents should be able to abstain,” the CS said.
The beginning
Her sentiments comes a week after the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) executive director Winnie Byanyima who was in Kenya for a State visit said that it is time Kenya allows teenagers to access contraceptives.
She highlighted that inequalities and injustices in our societies are driving up the HIV/Aids pandemic and making specific groups of people such as young women and adolescent girls highly vulnerable to HIV infection.
“ Two out of three people living with HIV are women. While in 2021 there were still 1.5 million new HIV/Aids-related deaths” She noted.
“If a girl is going to be exposed to situations where she is having sex, forced sex or consensual sex then she needs lifesaving protection. I wouldn’t want to see any child getting pregnant or getting infected just because of a moral argument that is not applicable and if it was really applicable would she be having sex?”
Said Byanyima.
What are your thoughts on this?
By Wanjiru Mbaru