One evening, Naomi Cherotich, 17, headed home from her school on the slopes of Mount Elgon in Bungoma County, western Kenya. A man from her village gave her a ride on his motorcycle. Then he gave her sweets, bananas, sugarcane, and some money. Then he slept with her. Soon Naomi was pregnant.
Naomi’s mother, Milka Chepchor, cried when she learned her daughter was pregnant. “I am a single mother, and my hope was that [Naomi] will complete her education and join college or university so that she can change my life,” she said. “I gave birth to my daughter when I was 16. The boy who caused all [this] denied the baby and never gave me support. He married another girl. My father chased me away from home and I stayed with my grandmother. Now history is repeating itself.”
The motorcycle rider hid when he realized that Naomi was pregnant, fearing arrest for having sex with a student. Naomi ran away from home to stay with her grandmother to hide from friends and neighbors who might mock her as a “loose girl.”
She complained to her grandmother of stomach pain, asking her to fetch local herbs from the forest to treat “stomach snakes” (worms), not revealing she was pregnant. After drinking one cup of the brewed herbs, Naomi started bleeding heavily. Her grandmother ran to the local administrator for help. Two men carried Naomi on a wheelbarrow for several miles until they found a motorbike. On it, sandwiched between the driver in front of her and a helper behind, she made it to Kopsiro Health Center.
Teenage pregnancy in Kenya remains a serious public health issue; the government estimates 15 percent of women age 15–19 are or have been pregnant. Poverty, lack of education, and breakdowns in family environment are main contributors. Although the age of consent in Kenya is 18, and laws are supposed to protect students still in secondary school, some men still coax impoverished girls to exchange sexual favors for small gifts.
In November 2023, Ministry of Health officials reported that 54 girls out of roughly 250 from a single Mount Elgon school became pregnant over the course of the year. Bungoma County—along with Nairobi, Kakamega, and Narok counties—has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Kenya. One of Kenya’s national newspapers attributed high pregnancy rates to parental neglect, poverty, and cultural practices. Girls as young as 10 drop out of school due to pregnancy. Bungoma County is predominantly Christian.
Kenya (at 18%), along with Uganda and Tanzania (25%), have higher teenage pregnancy rates than the global average of 15%.
At Kopsiro Health Center, Naomi received help from nurse Hesborn Sambo, who for ten years has been on a mission to save teenage mothers. During his internship at Bungoma Referral Hospital, Sambo witnessed many deaths from pregnancy complications. “Many of these girls were from my home area on the slopes of Mount Elgon,” he said. “I started reaching out to these teenage mothers.”
At first, administrators didn’t support his outreach to local teens, Sambo said. “I had nobody to help me. I used my own salary to travel around schools and villages talking to the pregnant girls and parents.”
Many health workers in Kenya sign in at their clinics then sneak away to work side gigs, such as treating patients at home, working at a private clinic, or going to meetings that offer “sitting allowances” for attending. Sambo recalled, “My bosses thought I was one of these kinds of people and were reluctant to support me.”
After several years of struggle, Sambo received support from administrators: a motorcycle. He started training school administrators, local government officials, and community health promoters.
Now, he asks pregnant teens to visit health facilities for prenatal care then shows them why it’s important to check their nutrition and blood pressure, give birth at a health facility, and put their babies on vaccine schedules. He also teaches them how to identify any complications that would be risky to both the mother and the baby.
“I thank God to have given me the energy to make this a success. I feel happy to see these girls [willing] to come out and ask questions at the facility and some even encouraging others to come out.”
Sambo grew up in a Christian family. Years ago, he had asked God to place him in the best position to help poor families. “I am a born again Christian, and everything I do, I put God first.”
The toughest task for Sambo is counseling the traumatized girls and their depressed parents: “I receive calls from parents who feel they have been ashamed by their daughters. So I visit the family and talk to them not to chase away their daughters for getting pregnant. I also talk to girls who are tempted to commit suicide because the society and the family has rejected them.”
David Kirui Kondo, a community health promoter from Chepich rural village, said many of the teens come from poor families with single parents who can’t afford basic needs. “You find that many of them get pregnant in December during long school holidays and during funerals where the community comes together dancing to music all night,” he said.
Another community health promoter, Violet Chebet Kipkirech from Ruarus village in Kopsiro, noted the lack of parental care and health services in villages: “You find that many families live next to the forest where they earn a living from. A father or mother who spends the whole day in the forest has no time for the children. They don’t talk to them. These young children have nowhere to seek help when they are faced with sexual challenges.”
Sambo said, “We used to register over 100 deaths of young mothers dying from pregnancy related complications, but that has reduced drastically to around 40, with more health facilities across the mountain. Lives are being saved.” Nevertheless, he said many deaths of pregnant teens are never documented, because they don’t visit health facilities. Many die silently in their villages, trying to procure abortions or committing suicide. No one reports the incidents for fear of arrests.
On July 28, Naomi Cherotich gave birth to a baby boy. Sambo’s lifesaving care became a turning point for Naomi. Sambo counseled her against suicide and abortion, offering prenatal care. Now, while her mother watches the baby, Naomi hopes to catch up with her classmates at school then study to become a teacher: “I am now a happy person. I can’t wait to go back to school and complete my education.”
