Health CS Susan Nakhumicha Insists No Condoms for Teenagers, Says They Should Abstain

Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha says her ministry will not be giving condoms to underage Kenyans to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Nakhumicha pointed out that as a Christian woman, she advocates for abstinence as a precautionary measure against sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy among teenagers.

“I am Mama Kanisa (a church woman), therefore number one is abstinence; that we teach our youth, our adolescents to abstain,” Nakhumicha said on the sidelines of the ongoing African Union Summit 2023 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

While acknowledging that condoms have been used around the world, the cabinet secretary maintained that Kenyan teenagers should be able to abstain with what she termed “firm Christian foundations”.

“Where they cannot abstain, then of course, condoms have been said as one of the ways to use protection. But I believe with firm Christian foundations that our adolescents should be able to abstain,” she added.

Nakhumicha spoke during the joint African Union Development Agency-PEPFAR briefing commemorating 20 years of partnership to end HIV/AIDS as a public health threat in Africa and the world.

Her remarks came a week after the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) executive director Winnie Byanyima urged Kenya to allow teenagers to access contraceptives.

“Increasing access isn’t just about putting clinics and making available contraceptives, it’s more than that, it’s about safe spaces where girls and young women can feel safe, have the privacy that they need and also have the choice of the method they want so as to protect themselves from infections, HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI’s). This is not happening for every girl and every woman,” Byanyima said during her visit to Kenya last week.

“If a girl is going to be exposed to situations where she is having sex, forced sex or consensual sex then she needs lifesaving protection. I wouldn’t want to see any child getting pregnant or getting infected just because of a moral argument that is not applicable and if it was really applicable would she be having sex?”