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Raise age of sexual consent to 21 years, Magoha says


Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha has proposed the age of sexual consent to be raised to 21 years.

The CS said the proposal to have age of sexual consent reduced to 16 is ill-advised.

“You will have the rest of your life to have sex, why do you want to be thinking about sex at 16 years?

“As Africans, we must stop using other people’s standards as our standards. My opinion is that the age should be increased to 21,” Prof Magoha told the Senate Committee on Education on Thursday.

He said parents must take responsibility and curb children’s access to porn at home.

Prof Magoha further said that if parents stop leaving the role of parenting to house helps, the rate of teenage pregnancies will reduce drastically.

“The ministry has put in place measures to ensure that cases of teenage pregnancies in schools reduce,” he said.

Last year, a large number of students were reported to be pregnant during the national examinations.

The CS said going forward, in areas where cases of teenage pregnancies have been rampant, the ministry will turn some of the day schools into boarding schools.

The senate committee raised concerns on the increased cases of teenage pregnancies and asked the Ministry of Education to put in place policies that will protect the girl child.

The CS said so far teachers who impregnate school girls have been punished