Age-appropriate sex education could prevent the teen pregnancies we keep budgeting for
A teacher takes learners through a lesson. We have a responsibility to empower adolescents so that they may grow up into adults who can make better choices for themselves.
What you need to know:
- Kenyan children have a constitutional right to comprehensive sex education as protection from harm, but Christian professional groups are denying them this lifesaving information.
- When we deny young people age-appropriate sexuality education, we violate their rights and perpetuate preventable problems like teen pregnancy.
Every child has the constitutional right to be protected from harm and neglect. Professional Christian groups want to put our children in danger by denying them lifesaving education and promoting laws and policies that harm our children and act against their best interests.
It takes a village to train and raise a child. Then, it is wrong for Christian professional groups to deny children education and information that they need to make better choices in life. It takes the entire modern village of parents, teachers, the government, the media and the church to raise our children to be responsible citizens regarding their own health and bodies.
Kenya Christian professional groups don’t want Kenyans who interact with children to be involved in empowering them with the information and knowledge they need to make wise and safe decisions about their lives and bodies. All Kenyans who interact with children should be involved in empowering children, parents, religious leaders, and teachers.
Education is power. We have a responsibility to empower adolescents so that they grow up into adults, who can make better choices for themselves and those around them. Every parent would like to see their daughters and sons educated. We, therefore, need to reduce all hindrances to this aspiration, especially teenage pregnancies. It is in the best interests of a child to be educated about why and how no one should have access to their bodies and that they have a right to be safe from violence and harm.
Children have the constitutional right to parental care and protection, which should uphold their best interests in every matter that concerns them, including their right to be free from harm and violence. We condemn all laws and policies that put children in harm’s way by denying them information and knowledge that can protect their health and life.
We support all laws and policies that promote the wellbeing of children by ensuring that both parents and children are equipped with lifesaving information about their health. Age-appropriate, evidence-based sex education is a basic component of education. We stand against the efforts of these professional groups who want to take Kenya back to the dark days where it was taboo to talk to our children about information that would protect their health and save their lives.
We believe that all human beings deserve to be protected from harm by being given information that will protect their health and save their lives. The present and the future of our nation and that of our children depends on our ability to commit to the promise we made to protect our children.
Provision, access and uptake of age-appropriate comprehensive sex and sexuality education to all adolescents and young people in all their diversities is necessary and lifesaving. Access to age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education should be a lifelong process of acquiring information and forming attitudes, beliefs and values about sex and sexuality.
When Kenya chooses not to implement age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education, we will continue to plan and budget on baselines for adolescent pregnancies and other negative outcomes that can be prevented. The government should include age-appropriate comprehensive education in the school curriculum to counter social, health and reproductive health issues that adolescents and young people in all their diversities face.
The importance of age-appropriate sexuality education is vital as it secures the child’s future and helps them grow into more responsible and empathetic adults. As preventative approach, sex education is important to manage social and health issues among adolescents and youth.