Giving condoms to teens is not the answer

Members of the public take part in a procession in Eldoret Town to celebrate this year’s World Population Day, aimed at stopping adolescent pregnancy on July 11, 2013. JARED NYATAYA (Eldoret). 

In Summary

• Children don’t plan sex; they are either lured into it with sweets, mandazi and other truffles before they are ensnared in its allure.
• It is time we debunked the myth that Aids and teen pregnancy are the only hazards of premature sexual engagement.
• Premature sex is strongly linked to cervical cancer — one of the top killers of women in their 30s and 40s.

A recent report in this newspaper titled Teen sex rolls back gains in war on Aids has elicited outrage with the predictable chorus of making condoms available to youngsters.

Amid the renewed clamour for condoms, a reader, Dennis Lumiti, poses some sobering questions. “Just what is going on in our country? How does an eight-year-old boy or girl (know) that there is something called sex, let alone practising it? And with whom do they engage in that act?”

He opines that the culprits could be people the children adore and fear — their fathers, uncles, brothers, teachers, clerics, neighbours, leaders...

In such a situation, and given that negotiating safe sex is hard enough for their mothers, which is why many married women are reportedly aborting because they were made pregnant by their husbands against their will — the idea of doling out condoms to pre-teens can only be termed as the height of naïveté.

To start with, sex with an under 18-year-old is a crime under the Children’s Act, which describes it as ‘defilement’. And it is defilement precisely because such a person is deemed to lack the capacity to engage in consensual sex.

Even if we assume they know what they are doing and should be given the necessary education and gadgets to engage in ‘safe sex’, it is time we debunked the myth that Aids and teen pregnancy are the only hazards of premature sexual engagement.

The point about sex — protected or unprotected — is that it is addictive, and while it is all fine for a grown-up, and ideally a person in a matrimonial situation, it is a different ball-game for children, as it puts them in a situation they cannot control.

It is emotionally and psychologically draining on a child who harbours guilt because his or her first calling is education.

Another important point is that children don’t plan sex; they are either lured into it with sweets, mandazi and other truffles before they are ensnared in its allure, or coerced into it as happens in the many cases of ritual sex.

There are many sexual predators out there who rape little girls in the mistaken belief that the girls are clean, or they are capable of cleansing them of HIV that causes Aids. The truth is that condoms have absolutely no place in this kind of situation. Indeed, the perpetrators are the type who want body-to-body contact.

If, however, the purveyors of safe-sex for youth get their way, you can be sure of this: the condom manufacturers will get their profits as our children reap the bitter harvest of premature sex.

Premature sex is strongly linked to cervical cancer — one of the top killers of women in their 30s and 40s. Because children should not be playing sex in the first instance, the act is always hurried, hence exposure to the human papilloma virus that causes the cancer.

Or is this why we are moving from bad to worse — promoting untested cervical cancer vaccines for girls?

It is time parents — and other people of good will — mobilised to forge realistic strategies to protect our children.