Kericho County Commissioner (CC) Gilbert Kitiyo has ordered Deputy County Commissioners (DCCs) and NGAO personnel under them to immediately commence investigations and an audit on teenage pregnancies in Kericho County.
Kitiyo who was chairing the National Development County Implementation Coordination and Management Committee (NGD-CICM) attended by all heads of Departments, Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies SAGAS, Ministries Department and DCCs in his boardroom decried the rising number of child and teenage pregnancies in the area.
The CC directed Deputy County Commissioners DCCS, the ACCs Chiefs and their assistants in all the six Sub Counties in Kericho to carry out a thorough investigation, record and hand in a report to his office within two weeks of all the cases and reports of child defilement and teenage pregnancies that have been captured and identified by other government departments from areas of their jurisdiction.
Kitiyo ordered the officers to identify the names, age, school and the names of the perpetrators of the heinous crime.
He observed there was a conspiracy of silence right from school going children and perpetrators of defilement as justice is denied space through local ‘courts’.
The CC said that once the report reached his office, it would be handed over to the DCI to commence investigations on the vice and those behind the teenage pregnancies would be arrested and prosecuted.
According to the Kericho County Gender Officer Ms Beatrice Chebet, in a report for State Department for Gender and Affirmative Action for year 2022, a total of 653 of teenage pregnancies girls between the ages of 10 to 14 years and another over 5240 cases of between the ages of 15-19 years were reported.
By Dominic Cheres
