CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS: THE CLERGY IS GIVING KENYANS A POISONED CHALICE.

Dear Sir/Madam, Going by the recent bits and pieces from a section of the clergy it becomes abundantly clear that the most surreal aspect of our great constitutional debate is the Beltway credence given to the ravings of the seemingly apolitical and unrepentant religious blunderers. They have made it their sole business to constantly erect road blocks by way of rushing to court to emasculate us in our collective efforts to midwife a new constitutional order. And now they have the audacity to imperiously and tardily demand for minimum constitutional reforms rather than the constitutional overhaul that the country is in dire need of! If my mind serves me right the same clergy was and has been in the forefront in clamoring for a total overhaul of the constitution. And now they have seen the light, and changed from Paul to Saul. It cannot be the other way round. That is why the pulpy clergy are harping from the pulpit and in many other available forums; “No to comprehensive constitutional reforms! We want minimum constitutional reforms!” This is extremely ridiculous. I am convinced that behind this facade are certain political big wigs who are deeply anti-reformists. The question that bothers many people is why this section of the clergy continues to harbor extremely cynical views of the Kenyan electorate. Why unashamedly engage in political ping pong with the constitution making process? It is not difficult to explain their sudden change of heart. They all along hoped that by engaging in all manner of antics, they will force the Committee of Experts (CoE) into a last minute, cut-and-paste exercise that will favour their political disposition. Their collective actions and inactions are not only embarrassing them as leaders but also the church as a whole. They must be reminded that the church is not a political party that demands that all its members must take a similar political view on an issue. So whose interests are they representing? Theirs would be a lousy way to run even a chicken farm. It's an unconscionable way to run the church. But then this was not entirely unexpected since most of these clergy manage their churches just like a Stock Exchange. I would love to think that there might be someone out there who would at long last put that case loud and clear to the this pretentious lot before they get more opportunity to peddle their deeply depressing opinion. If left unchecked they will adamantly and deliberately refuse to see that failure in adopting a new constitution poses adverse monumental and multilateral effects for this country. They will continue to lay blame at the feet of the two principals and resort to using all manner of whimsical and unconventional adjectives to convey their powerful rush of emotions. They will call them “moribund and ineffective” but at the same time engage in impious antics to deny the nation that which is central to its stability. TOME FRANCIS, BUMULA CONSTITUENCY.

TEENAGE PREGNANCY AND POVERTY HAVE A POSITIVE CORRELATION.

Dear Sir/Madam, According to the latest report (2009) from the Centre for the Study of Adolescence9 (CSA), Kenya is confronted with an escalating epidemic of teenage pregnancies. In spite of the Government upping its efforts in attaining gender parity in education and in spite of the increased levels of knowledge about modern methods of contraception, rates of teenage pregnancy remain unacceptably high. Note that I deliberately use the term “epidemic” because unsafe sex results not only in unwanted pregnancies but also in HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases not to mention the gruesome dark alley abortions that quite often lead to the death of the vulnerable teenagers. Studies carried out in Kenya (Njau and Radney, 1995) indicated that as many as 285,000 pregnancies occurred in Kenya among teenagers aged between 15 to 19 years old. That was then. Today, the figure has of course doubled. Why? Because poverty has over the years more than doubled. In other words, teenage pregnancy and poverty have a positive correlation. As poverty bites so do we see the increase in teenage pregnancies in the country. Dr. Saadhna Panday, etal, in their study titled “Teenage Pregnancy in South Africa with specific reference to school going Teenagers” (2007) found that a larger percentage of teenage pregnancy is the result of a complex set of varied and inter-connected factors that are quite often related to the environment under which teenagers grow. I cannot agree more. This is because when teenagers grow up in informal settlements and other residential settlements where poverty is deeply entrenched they will hardly resist the lure of the fallen seraphim often from the leafy suburbs. What follows is reciprocity of sex in exchange for material goods. In such instances there is absolutely no freedom for the teenager to negotiate safe sex thus the risk of pregnancy is increased. Sex education knowledge is rendered meaningless by a starving teenager who discovers that by peddling her ‘wares’ she can see the day through. Does it surprise us that teenage pregnancies are much higher in schools that are located in poor neighborhoods? Ojwang and Magwa (1991) opine that the teenager`s urge to temporarily eschew poverty initiates a trajectory of lifetime poverty. She becomes pregnant. Later, the teenager is expelled or excluded from school and will quite often lack material and social support besides the physiological harm. Furthermore, the children of teenage mothers are at greater risk of lower intellectual and academic achievement, health complications, social behavior problems and problems of self-control than are children of older mothers, primarily due to the effects of single parenthood and lower maternal education. And the vicious circle of poverty continues. Besides poverty, another predisposing factor is the mass media that has sunk to unimaginable low levels in their blind aping of westernization which is unfortunately a euphemism for moral decadence. In their book titled “Facts in Brief: Teen Sex and Pregnancy (1996), The Alan Guttmacher Institute states that teenagers are constantly bombarded left, right and centre with perversion. Talk of sex fills the airwaves; teenagers are portrayed as sex objects; and sex is used to sell everything from clothing to news. Yet we all pretend to be shocked at the rising numbers of teens who become pregnant! If we are truly concerned about the welfare of teenagers, we must move beyond the moral panic and denial. Designing effective solutions will require the thoughtful separation of fact, assumption and wishful thinking and an honest acknowledgment that concerted efforts are required in mitigating against the debilitating teenage pregnancy. What is evident though is that a magic bullet for teenage pregnancy does not exist. Given the multiple levels of predisposing factors on teenage sex and pregnancy, single intervention strategies by single sectors will not solve teenage pregnancy. What is required is a comprehensive approach that incorporates the home, the school, the community, the healthcare setting as well as change at a structural level. TOME FRANCIS, BUMULA CONSTITUENCY.