(Free Delivery, Costly Silence)
When Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale recently announced that “all teenage mothers in our country, if they deliver, they will deliver free,” it drew quick applause and headlines across the nation. On the surface, it sounded like compassion; a government committed to protecting vulnerable young mothers.
But beneath the warm applause lies a harder truth: free delivery is not the solution Kenya’s teenage girls are asking for. It is, at best, a plaster on a deep wound that society refuses to clean.
According to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) 2022, 15% of adolescent girls aged 15–19 in Kenya are already mothers or pregnant with their first child. The situation is even worse in counties such as Homa Bay, Migori, Kisumu, Narok, and West Pokot, where rates range between 18–22%. These are not just numbers; they represent classrooms that lost students, families carrying silent shame, and dreams interrupted before they could begin.
The causes of teenage pregnancy are well-documented: poverty, sexual violence, lack of access to contraceptives, absence of comprehensive sexuality education, and stigma around reproductive health.
Yet public policy continues to treat the symptom, not the cause.
Free maternity care sounds noble…but for teenage girls, it comes too late. It does nothing to prevent the pregnancy, protect the girl from abuse, or empower her to make informed choices about her body. How do we celebrate “free delivery” when many of these pregnancies result from defilement or coercion, and when adolescent-friendly SRH services remain out of reach in most health facilities?
We cannot keep celebrating survival when prevention is possible.
If Kenya’s Ministry of Health truly seeks to protect teenage mothers, it must start before conception; by investing in comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), access to affordable contraception, and safe, stigma-free reproductive health services for adolescents.
The National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy (2015–2030) already outlines these priorities, yet eight years on, implementation remains weak and underfunded. Health facilities lack youth-friendly spaces, schools sidestep SRHR education, and girls continue to suffer in silence.
Until Kenya addresses the root causes — gender inequality, poverty, defilement, and policy neglect; teenage mothers will continue to pay the real price, even when delivery is “free.”
Because what teenage girls need most is not a free bed in a maternity ward…it’s the freedom to dream, learn, and choose their own futures.
