NAIROBI, Kenya Sep 2 – A new study now shows that the coronavirus pandemic has sent half of the population of adolescents in Kenya into depression due to the challenges their parents or guardians are facing.
The research, conducted by the Presidential Policy and Strategy Unit (PASU) in collaboration with Population Service Kenya (PS) indicated that half of the adolescents had shown signs of depression, attributed to the effects of the pandemic that led to a partial lockdown in the country since March last year.
As a result of the lockdown that persisted much of last year, many people lost their jobs or experienced reduced income due to salary cuts, making it difficult for them to support their families.
“About half of all adolescents said they had experienced symptoms of depression. Reflecting the harsh economic realities during the pandemic, 75% reported skipping meals when their families could not afford food,” the report findings on the impact of the pandemic on adolescents supported by Amref Health Africa states in part.
In some cases, the report states, some teenagers have experienced mental disorders.
In Kenya, it is estimated that one in every 10 people suffer from a common mental disorders, with experts saying depression and anxiety disorders are the leading mental illnesses diagnosed in Kenya.
The report findings point to the critical need for bold action to address school dropouts, teenage pregnancies, lost learning momentum, domestic violence, and other negative consequences of the pandemic on the lives of adolescents in Kenya.
The findings by the report show that four percent of adolescents aged between 15-19 years old are pregnant or recently had a baby.
“When schools reopened in January 2021, 16% of girls and 8% of boys did not return to school. This translates to approximately 250,000 girls and 125,000 boys,” the report states.
Recent studies have shown that at least 400,000 teenagers get pregnant every year in Kenya.
An independent report released last year showed that there were 152,820 teenage pregnancies reported across the country in the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic that struck Kenya in March 2020.
Even though the report was initially dismissed by Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha as ‘obnoxious’, he has since admitted that the challenge is affecting school going girls leading to drop outs.
In May this year, the Ministry of Education said more than 12,000 learners who registered for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations in 2020 did not turn up, many of them being girls said to have fallen pregnant.
Officials said sexual Gender-Based violence is one of the factors blamed for the high number of school dropouts, particularly for girls.
Latest statistics released by the Ministry of Education show that girls were worst affected in the pandemic that struck the country in March last year, forcing the closure of schools for a year until January 2021.
While some schools mainly in urban areas embraced digital learning, majority did not, in what officials at the Ministry of Education blamed on lack of proper infrastructure to support digital learning.
During that long recess, officials said, 652 schoolgirls in secondary school who were studying in their final year, Form Four, were impregnated and had to sit for their exams while pregnant or after giving birth, an increase of three times from 2019 when only 282 were affected.
