NEW HIV INFECTIONS HIGHEST IN TEENAGERS? WHY HASN'T THIS BEEN DECLARED A NATIONAL DISASTER??

A few days back, I saw an online video highlighting some of the problems the millennial generation has and unfortunately the video failed to highlight the deadliest problem, HIV/AIDS.  

If the HIV prevalence among teenagers’ statistics is anything to go by, Kenya has a looming disaster that MUST be dealt with as soon as yesterday. A few months back there was talk about introducing sex education to schools, but as expected education stakeholders couldn’t agree on the best implementation strategy. Reason being, most Kenyans tend to go into panic-mode when faced with any situation that could either change the status quo, contradict our ‘culture and traditions’ or basically if they have no idea how to address the problem. In the African culture, it has for years been termed as taboo to address or talk about sex issues near children. The problem though is, the ‘children’ in this case have long ‘grown up’ and know things most of us were clueless about at their age.  

Over the past couple of months the media has highlighted several stories of teenagers booking hotel rooms, hiring buses and organizing private parties, to engage in activities they have no business engaging in, including orgies and drugs. Data from various counties especially Bungoma and several other counties have indicated a drastic increase in teenage pregnancies.   

If you marry the HIV prevalence statistics, frequency of teenagers being found in compromising situations and teenage pregnancies prevalence; it’s obvious the problem is way deeper than a bunch or rebelling teenagers.

What baffles me most is the fact that parents, religious leaders, politicians and education stakeholders don’t realize there are deeper issues in this country than who is heading IEBC or who will be president next year. We have a completely clueless, confused, misinformed and misguided generation. What’s worse is the fact that the generation the teenagers should be looking up to, the 25-40 year olds are more lost than the teenagers themselves. 

The question is; what is the real problem and what’s the solution? I honestly don’t have a clear answer to that question, reason being; only the teenagers themselves can answer it. All I have is what I think contributes to the problems teenagers are facing.

First and foremost, who and where are the parents to these teenagers? A dysfunctional family unit coupled up with a drastic increase in the cost of living and individuals’ desire to live a better life have led to parents spending most of their time away from home, hence the teenagers being left under the guidance and parenting of the caretakers/house managers, the internet and fellow peers in the same situation. Is this however enough reason for parents not to be actively involved in their children’s day-to-day activities? Most parents nowadays tend to equate providing their children with material items to good parenting. This could not be further from the truth though. Taking a child to the best schools, buying them the best gadgets, buying them cars at 18 years and living in the best estates has nothing to do with good parenting. In fact, this might be a major contributor to their problem. I would rather have a mentally healthy and hard-working child living a middle-class life, than a self-entitled ‘rich’ brat.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not an advocate of mediocrity. In fact, I believe we should all be able to work hard towards achieving the best and highest attainable quality of life. Striking the balance between work and family seem to be a huge challenge to most of us. 

Research done in the recent past showed that most teenagers had their first sexual encounter before their 15^th birthday! Shocking right? This would be considered ‘normal’ in the western culture, but not in the African context, but we do know by now that it indeed is the ugly reality.

A further analysis of the situation according to age groups further indicates the depth of the problem. Gone are the days when 5 year olds played with Barbie dolls, car toys and mud. In the current generation;

5-18 year olds who should be studying hard, discovering their talent, playing age-appropriate games among other activities; are now playing aggressive video games and watching pornography videos and images online.

18-24 year olds who should ideally be attending campus in order to shape careers, going out for friendly coffee dates and/or walks in the park, and discovering who they really are as individuals; are instead busy having pre-marital affairs, dating and having unplanned pregnancies and children with men and/or women in the 25-35 year category who are just as lost and misguided as their younger counterparts and worse still dating older married men and/or women (sponsors) for easy money, instead of building careers and implementing God-given talents. Well, with socialites and near-naked musicians for role models, I’m not surprised.

I have seen 18-24 year olds getting married and starting families and it baffles me because any psychologist will tell you that infatuation is very often mistaken for love in that age group. I however do understand why that particular scenario exists. A teenager who is exposed to pornographic material, near-nude/explicit music videos at as young as 13 years or younger are more likely than not to engage in what they see on TV or internet. This means teenagers having sex way before their 18^th birthday and having kids, while still kids.

Unfortunately sex and drugs are in the modern society taken as part of ‘societal norm’, and as teenagers engage in all the escapades mentioned above, there are so many avenues of contracting HIV.

So, if teenagers are engaging in sex while as young as 13 years isn’t it time we dealt with the issue head-on and actually introduced not only sex education in theory but also contraceptive education and demonstrations on contraceptive use in schools? Secondly to the ‘morality cops’ and religious groups, isn’t it time to re-strategize? Clearly, the old ‘waiting till marriage’ slogan isn’t working any more, at least not on the majority of teenagers and youth.

Having said that, what’s the best way forward? I think the ONLY persons with that answer are the teenagers themselves, because unless we fully understand their side of the story, we can’t draw a clear way forward.