Parents! Parents! Parents! It is about time to Talk to our Children about SEX!
Am
not usually a fan of eves dropping on people’s conversations, but on this one, I
didn’t have a choice but to pay maximum attention.
I
usually
leave work at around 5:00 pm and get home between 5:30 -6:00 pm, as a norm. I have
taught myself that it is a good thing to interact with people in my neighborhood after a long days work and get to know what transpired during the
day while I was away. Well, am sure majority of people would have a dissenting opinion on this and especially the so called “Middle Class”, but there is
nothing much that can be done pertaining perceptive reasoning.
So
back to my story; as I got home, there is this place that they sell the
traditional Meru porridge called “Mukio”. Any Meru would agree with me this is
a great delicacy that would leave anyone licking their lips after a mug or two
of the same and especially during this weird cold season in the month of September. The owner of the place set up a
sitting arrangement that can accommodate around 7 people at a time where people can exchange pleasantries as they catch up after a long day. On this particular day, I found the lady who sells the delicacy with two other women who seemed
to have cleared their mugs of Mukio porridge in a deep
conversation. As I was enjoying my porridge, the lady seated on the left and right in-front of me, the three of them were having a conversation and informing the others, that her elder sister was arrested by cops from Kasarani police
station a couple of weeks ago. So the two of them were curious to know what had
transpired leading to the arrest of the sister. Apparently the sister was a pharmacist
working in a chemist around my neighborhood and that there is this 16 year old
girl (a form two student) who visited the chemist and inquired to procure a particular drug (unfortunately they didn’t mention the name of the drug) and it caught the
sister by surprise on why such a girl would want to access such medicines. The girl managed to convince the pharmacist, that the medicines were for her 27 year old sister at home and that she wasn’t
feeling well. Interestingly, the pharmacist agreed to sell the
drugs to her knowing very well, they were for procuring an abortion and that
the girl was an underage as per the laws of Kenya.
As
they kept having their conversation, I tried as much as possible to appear passive so as not to appear
as if I am keenly following through it, so I quickly opened my phone to keep
myself busy as I get to listen much more keenly to what they were talking about. At this
point in time, the lady attending to the “Mukio Porridge” shop pulled a
chair closer in ensuring that she doesn't miss an inch of the conversation. So the under-age girl who bought the abortion drug from
the chemist was confronted by the mother as what type of drug she was taking
and how she got the money to buy it,
having in mind she is just student. So after the confrontation with the mother, she revealed where she had bought the drug and the mother reported the
issue to the police, and consequently leading to the arrest of the pharmacist. the pharmacist was held at the police station for approximately two days, from what I gathered, but the parent of the girl didn’t appear interested to press charges and so she opted to settle it out of the judicial system because according to her, she didn’t
have money to prosecute the case further and the pharmacist was let go. As the
conversation went on, it became quite clear that the form two girl had
committed two previous backstreet abortions at the age of 16 or less and this really
took me by surprise. This begs the following questions;
- Who was the person responsible in impregnating this child? Was he an underage as well or an adult who deliberately did this?
- Are the present parents able and well equipped to talk to their children about sex?
- Are the current crop of children over-exposed on matters sex?
- Was it a case of peer pressure?
- Was it a case of an adult taking advantage of a younger girl?
- Was it a case of using money as bait for sex with a school going child?
- Is the present parents too busy “hassling” and leaving the children to be “taught by the world”?
- Has the community completely turned back to shared responsibilities of bringing up children as it was in the 80s and early 90s?
- Did this particular girl lack the safe space to talk about her reproductive health?
When
we were growing up in the 80s and early 90s, our parents were a bit closer to us
vis a vis nowadays where there is an increasingly distance occasioned by changing types of occupations and life demands. Then, there used to be a community
approach in raising children and every parent would concur with such a societal set up.
Back
to the story, was the pharmacist just ignorant to have sold the “abortion drugs”
to an underage child? Was she driven by desire for money? Personally I don’t know
what her drive was. I am not privy to much information on the mandate of the Drugs and poisons board- the body mandated in overseeing operations of chemists, but am sure
such drugs are not to be dispensed over the counter. So as I was about
to wind up my mug of Mukio porridge, the other lady and the shop attendant made
this comment, “sasa
ule mwanamme atakuja kuoa huyo msichana atadhani ameoa msichana mzuri sana,
kumbe atapata ni mama mzee (the man who will ever marry that girl later on in
life will imagine that the girl is quite fresh only to realize she is an old
woman)”.
I
have practiced Behavior Science for more than 7 years and in my practice, I remember
we had great resource of interventions that are known as “Evidence Based
Interventions”. We then had great deliberations with decision makers within the
education sector on matters “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” which
encompassed integrating Comprehensive Sexuality Education to the Kenyan primary and
secondary school curriculum.
In 2011, there was a launch of “National Curriculum on Sexuality and
Sexual Health Training for Health Service Providers”[1]
whose
purpose was “To equip health care providers with the knowledge, skills, and
attitudes necessary to ensure high-quality, holistic service provision in the
areas of sexuality and sexual health to the adolescents.” How effective has this been to
service providers? Had that pharmacist been through this or read this, would
she have sold the abortion drug to the underage girl?
On 21st
-26th, April, 2013 I participated in the revision of the
Comprehensive Sexuality Education Syllabus which was facilitated by UNESCO and
Ministry of Education in Nyeri, and we had all the key stakeholders represented in the meeting and from that one week meeting I confident enough that we had a breakthrough. What happened
thereafter, it is a story for another day.
Back
to the Evidence Based Interventions. I want to specifically talk about;
The Families Matter Program (FMP)[2]:
The Families Matter! Program (FMP) is an
evidence-based, parent-focused intervention designed to promote positive
parenting and effective parent-child communication about sexuality and sexual
risk reduction, including risk for child sexual abuse and gender-based
violence, for parents or caregivers of 9-12 year-olds in Africa. FMP recognizes
that many parents and guardians may need support to effectively convey values
and expectations about sexual behavior and communicate important HIV, STD, and
pregnancy prevention messages to their children. The goal of FMP is to reduce
sexual risk behavior among adolescents by engaging parents in the delivery of
primary prevention messages to their children, and increasing awareness and
protective strategies against child sexual abuse and harmful gender norms that
may lead to violence; and there is,
Healthy
Choices for a Better Future (HCBF) - The
HC Program is a community-based, group-level intervention developed for youth
aged 10-14 years. The intervention curriculum focuses on: · Raising youths’
awareness about the sexual risks they face today; · Improving sexual safety by
identifying risky settings; and · Enhancing communication negotiation, and
refusal skills.
As
we deliberate, about the need to talk to our children on matters sex, it is my
considered opinion that, it is better to have the conversations now than wait when it is too late
to turn back the tide.
As
I pen off, I would like to continuously urge the Civil Societies, the
Government Institutions and other key stakeholders/ partners not to tire but to
consider institutionalizing these Interventions in our schooling system, they have been proven to work.
Parents,
let us NORMALIZE TALKING TO OUR CHILDREN ON MATTERS SEX.
Authored by;
Brian N. Kavuwa.
briventures@gmail.com.
Yes parents must have the courage to take the initiative of moulding their children towards sex education and discipline
ReplyDeleteVery informative, the rain started beating us when we ignored and dumped community based parenting.
ReplyDelete