They are thought of as more reserved and therefore chaste, but girls bred in the village break virginity much earlier compared to those in towns.
A study supported by the ministry of health suggests village girls have first sex mostly at 16.7 years – when those in school are in Form 2 or Form 3.
Majority of them do not use contraceptives until 22 years of age.
Thus village girls start giving birth early and also get married early at 20 years on average, says the study.
Those in towns, often thought to be more hedonistic, break their virginity late at 18.4 years, probably after completing secondary school.
They begin using contraceptives early at 21.9 years.
The study was conducted by the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA2020), an independent project that has been tracking trends in contraceptive use and family planning in Kenya since 2014.
Results were released at the just-ended 2nd International Conference on Maternal, New-born and Child Health in Nairobi.
“The gap between first sex and first contraceptive use among rural women is six years and 3.5 years for urban women,” said Prof Peter Gichangi, the principal investigator for PMA2020 in Kenya.
PMA2020 is supported by MoH, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, several non-governmental organisations and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In this study, researchers sampled 151 enumeration areas drawn by the KNBS and 5,876 females were interviewed between November and December 2017.
“For adolescent women, the survey found that in general rural women on average have sex earlier, marry earlier and use contraception later in life than urban counterparts,” Prof Gichangi said.
The study calls for effective strategies to increase access to contraceptive services and information among girls aged 15 to 24 years.
It shows among beneficiaries of contraceptives in public health facilities, only 35 per cent are girls aged 15-24 years.
Although public health facilities are required to offer such services to adolescents, they face stigma and are often denied the services on account of age.
