Teenage girls in Kisii are slowly turning into commercial sex workers to make ends meet and life a little more bearable, Education News has learnt.
And the alarm bells are ringing, with community policing groups that have noticed the danger lamenting the exploitation of underage girls who are disguised as bar maids but are prostitutes in the real sense.
They attributed the vice to negligence, parents having completely abdicated their roles of guidance and counseling, leaving them to wander unguarded as they think they are mature enough to make the right choices in life.
“We get a lot of problems rounding up these young girls who usually crowd in and around bars under the cover of night,” said Harlon Onduso, a member of one of the groups.
He said that most girls are forced by poverty to do these dirty jobs to get food and a little money as they are exploited sexually.
Peterson Ogega, another community policing group member in Nyangusu town, said that most widowed women in the region leave their homes early in the morning for casual labour in Transmara Sugar Company farms and come back late in the evening, some having no knowledge of what their daughters have been up to during the day, nor what they ate.
However, some understand fully what goes on, sometimes with their tacit approval.
“We have been trying to discourage them from entry into these dirty activities but parents tend to give them freedom to go there and bring money to buy basics like soap and salt,” he said, blaming hotel owners in the area who engage minors in washing utensils and serving their customers during the day and release them into the streets at night.
Education News talked to *Elsie Obonyo (not her real name) who at Igare town practices prostitution with casual labourers in construction sites, who said she has been in the business for quite some time.
“I came here when I was 13 years after the death of my father to look for money to support my mum and my younger siblings,” she volunteered, revealing that she makes about Ksh180 in a day after sleeping with several men.
She was enticed into the business by her peers who had joined it earlier and seemed to live comfortable lives as they dressed and ate well.
Another girl, 19, whose identity we shall withhold, tells the same story; she dropped out of school because of pregnancy and joined the business at the age of 16.
She gets Ksh400 from her clients and this has enabled her to rent her own room at Ksh700 where she hosts newbies in the business.
“I charge them a small fee to supplement what I get for food and life continues,” she said.
The survey revealed that the minors attend night discos at Tabaka, Nyamache Kenyenya, Nyanturago, Magenna and Etago towns to meet potential clients.
Parents appealed to area leaders and the church to curb the menace before it blows out of proportion, asking them to copy the example of Ibeno Ward MCA Steve Arika who moves from one village to another to encourage young mothers to return to school or join Technical and Vocational Education Institutes (TVET) to acquire skills.
Mary Nyarechi, a community health promoter in Sengera town of Bomachoge Chache Constituency, said her group tries to sensitize the young girls on the dangers of unprotected sex but their efforts have not yielded much fruit because of lack of finance for their daily operations.
She appealed to the government to consider people of her calibre for full time engagements to motivate them in their services.
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