Kenyan teenagers are sexually active, want to know more about contraception and don’t want to be preached to, according to a new report.

The report entitled ‘From Paper to Practice: Sexuality Education Policies and Their Implementation’, was written by researchers from the Guttmacher and African Population and Research Center based on a survey of 2,484 teenagers aged between 15 and 17 in Homa Bay, Mombasa and Nairobi Counties.

KENYAN TEENAGERS: SEXUALLY ACTIVE BUT IGNORANT ABOUT CONTRACEPTION

One-in-three teenagers interviewed said they were sexually active but only two out of every ten said they knew anything about contraceptive methods and only one-in-ten knew how to use a contraceptive.

The report suggests that Kenyan teenagers want to be taught how to use contraceptives as part of their sex education in schools and they want to know where to get them from to avoid pregnancy, HIV Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Just saying “No” to sex won’t work, the survey concludes. Many teenagers questioned said the current sexuality education curriculum is too “moralistic”, based on fear and preaching abstinence.

WHERE TEENAGERS LEARN ABOUT SEX

The report also found that:

94 per cent of teenagers, where they didn’t learn about sex and sexuality in school at school, learnt about it from books, pamphlets, the Internet, radio and TV;

86 per cent listened to friends, girlfriends or boyfriends;

72 per cent spoke to their mothers about the subject, compared to only 39 per cent from their fathers;

70 per cent sought information from health centres, youth centres and community centres.