MACHAKOS, Kenya, Jun 17 – A sudden surge in reported teen pregnancies within Machakos County is threatening to cut short the pursuit for education by vulnerable girls with latest statistics now showing 4,000 school-going children had been impregnated since mid-March.
The data released during Tuesday’s commemoration of the Day of the African Child showed a parallel in the number of newly reported teen pregnancies with coronavirus-related restrictions top among them the closure of schools to avert a catastrophic spread of the virus that has since spread to over thirty counties.
Machakos Children’s Officer Salome Muthama, who the statistics was picked from cases recorded in all county hospitals, told Capital FM News the number could be higher.
“During this coronavirus pandemic we do have 4000 impregnated girls. These are so many innocent girls,” she said.
Salome noted most of these cases are as a result of defilement by close family members.
