Parents and guardians have been blamed for failing to report hild sexual abuse and gender-based violence to the appropriate authorities.
This has been attributed to the fear of the the consequences or not being informed.
This leaves the perpetrators of such vices free without facing the consequences of their heinous actions.
The Health Principal Secretary (PS) Susan Mochache has now called on parents to be vigilant about their children’s sexual well-being.
While at Tendere grounds in Kisii, PS Mochache said that there has been an increase in the rate of teenage pregnancies, human-immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections and gender-based violence in recent times among the youth aged between 10 and 19 years. This has been dubbed the ‘Triple Threat’.
This has had a negative effect on the nation’s economic growth and educational progress of the youth especially young girls who get pregnant and drop out of school.
“The highest cases of new HIV infections recorded in the recent past are the youth who make up more than 63% of the total cases of infections in the country.
“Most of these cases over 30% are boys and girls who go through sexual and gender-based violence such as rape.
“I urge the Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) to kick up a notch on disease prevention and community health sensitization to help the country to achieve zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths by 2030,” said Dr Mochache.
On her part the Chief Executive Officer of the National AIDS Control Council (NACC). Dr Ruth Masha who was part of Dr Mochache’s entourage called on to start teaching their children about their sexuality from a young age.
She implored elders especially men to take the initiative in the fight against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and make is a personal decision within their conscience. This, in his view, is the best solution to reducing the rising Gender-Based Violence (GBV) cases.
Mochache lauded the Kisii community for the recent steady decrease in HIV infections but stressed the need for a further reduction in the cases.
“There has been a decrease in the number of HIV infections in Kisii even though the number is still high, there is some improvement.
“I congratulate you for this and urge you to even take more precautions to reduce the infection rate,” said Dr Masha.
Kisii County’s County Committee (CEC) member for Health Services Sarah Omache lauded the Ministry of Health’s efforts of curbing the three threats (triple threat).
She said that the county department of health will play its part in educating people in the region about the triple threats with the assistance of the CHVs in order to reduce the number of cases.
Members of the National Government Administration Officers (NGAO) and residents of the Gucha region were in attendance and they promised to help to raise community awareness of the health risks.