The Ministry of Health recently drafted and may soon launch the NATIONAL ADOLESCENT AND YOUNG PEOPLE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH POLICY 2022, a document that claims to promote the health of young people. However, the new policy erases many gains made over recent years amidst rising teenage pregnancies, school dropout rates and catastrophic HIV incidences amongst the youth. Notably, the new policy reverses progressive interventions already codified in the current ADOLESCENT AND YOUNG PEOPLE SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH POLICY 2015.

The redesigned interventions are completely out of touch with the realities of adolescents and youth in Kenya. With the draft currently under review, we ask the Ministry and for the sake of our youth, we urge the Ministry of Health to make the following urgent revisions.

Key asks:

1. Blanket bans will only hurt adolescents and young people. The policy must include a strategy for disseminating age appropriate Sexual and Reproductive Health information in and out of school for Adolescents and youth;
2. Address stigma for young people trying to access health services. The policy should outline clear strategies for delivering Youth Friendly Services in all health facilities at national and county levels;
3. Do not take away the youth’s ability to protect themselves from pregnancies, STIs, HIV etc. The policy should acknowledge young people’s evolving capacity for decision making when accessing and consenting to health services.
4. Create exceptions for guardian&parental consent – e.g., Where a parent or guardian is a sexual perpetrator of incest/defilement, adolescent should not be victimized by being asked to get the consent of those same perpetrators;
5. What about young survivors of sexual violence? The policy should outline clear guidelines for survivors of defilement, incest or any other sexual violence to access safe abortion services;
6. Prioritize access to information that will help youth prevent pregnancy instead of just focusing on returning to school after a teen pregnancy. The revised policy should protect young people’s sexual rights just like the 2015 version by granting the youth accurate, effective and timely non-biased information, contraception etc.
7. The new policy should expand the definition of vulnerable youth and adolescents including intersex persons, youth in sex work, injecting drug users etc; and
8. The new policy should offer realistic solutions to the rise in teenage pregnancies and HIV incidences as a national crisis. Restricting interventions to abstinence and cash transfers as suggested in the Reproductive Health Policy 2022 is unrealistic, entrenched in religious bias and fails to address the realities of sexually active teenagers.