Catherine Kamau aka Kate Actress was rattled by a comment by Bungoma Governor Ken Lusaka about teen pregnancies.
Speaking to journalists at his home on Saturday, January 13, 2024, Lusaka said nowadays girls get pregnant and are allowed to go back to school which was not the case in the past.
His statement was interpreted by some people to mean pregnant teens should be barred from continuing with their studies to tame the crisis in the county.
However, the Bungoma governor was forced to clarify his statement following public outcry.
Speaking at Lugulu Girls High School in Bungoma County on Tuesday, Lusaka said he was merely giving an example of how getting pregnant in school was viewed as a taboo.
“I did not say that those girls, early girls who have gotten pregnant should be banned from schools. I gave an example, I said during our time if you got pregnant in fact it was a taboo to get pregnant and if you got pregnant you even fear to go to school you would just discontinue yourself and disappear,” Lusaka said.
“I wanted to correct that. I did not say that in any case, the law protects those girls. It protects both guys, it protects the boys and girls so there’s nobody that can ban them from going," he added.
Kate Actress was among those who interpreted Lusaka's statement to mean that he called on pregnant teens to be barred from continuing with their studies.
The mother of two vented out her anger against the Bungoma in a post on her InstaStories on Wednesday, January 17, 2024.
"What kind of madness is this? Of course the woman got herself pregnant and only she should suffer the consequences? Right? These are your leaders. Women I hope you remember this 2027!" Kate Actress wrote.
Teen pregnancy victim
Kate Actress is a victim of teen pregnancy having dropped out of university after she was knocked up by her boyfriend.
The actress was impregnated at the age of 19 when she was a student in Uganda. She gave birth to her son Leon Karanja in 2006.
In a November 2021 interview with Churchill, the mother of two narrated how she blindly ate the forbidden fruit and ended up with a child.
Kate said that she met her first baby daddy, who is also a Kenyan, while schooling abroad.
The actress noted that on discovering that she was pregnant, she returned home to Kenya, wrote her mother a letter and eloped with the man who knocked her up.
“Coming from girls' schools only, I found myself in a class with boys it was like freedom, in a dorm with boys. I could go out, tunaduna, nikakula baing, nikapokea aki my mum had taken a 400k loan to educate me. I don’t understand how it was a shock to me yet I wasn’t on contraceptives. I never understood anything about contraceptives.
“At the time my mum was out of the country. I wrote her a letter and disappeared. She came back and told my friend that I should go back home. Kajamaa kalinipea character development, ni gaidi wa huku tuu, tulikutana huko- we met in Uganda at the University- by the way alikuwa very supportive sana so nilikaa huko home,” Catherine Kamau said.
