Education standards in Pumwani division of Nairobi, particularly within Majengo neighbourhood, are on sharp decline due to a very strange phenomena-Sex workers.

Majengo is famous for a high influx of commercial Sex Workers, majority of whom hail from neighbouring countries.

Now, the locals complain that the CSW, have widened their clientele segment to include even schooling boys.

At a forum to discuss the Njoki Ndung’u's Sexual Offences Bill held last Wednesday, the locals said the influx of cheap Sexual Services within the area has permeated into the youngsters minds. With only Sh20, they will purchase sex.

Consequently, they demand that the government moves in and rid the place of the bawdy houses whose occupants are in this trade of the flesh.

Jackeline Wangare, a local Human Rights activist, lamented in the forum that: at the close, opening or Midterm period for local secondary schools, school boys in uniform and carrying their bags literally invade the slum in search of sex workers.

“It is very conspicuous. All in uniform and queuing outside the CSW’s houses, getting in one by one and leaving the place excited and recounting their experiences in loud jokes…. It’s all that serious,” she lamented.

As a result, she wondered how school boys can be expected to concentrate on their education when they are always eager to break for their academic vacations and invade the slums for pleasure.

Further, the forum was told that local language has too many sexual connotations since the repute of commercial sex that the slum boasts of is influencing them negatively. The vocabularies, it was revealed, have been picked by even the very young, hence being a kind of a culture within even the under ages. Wangare argued: “These CSWs have their children. Since the houses they live in are small, it can be expected that they witness what their mothers are doing to earn a living. These children are classmates with other unexposed children. What makes you believe that the very same immorality they witness in houses won’t be experimented at their schools.?”

Further, a local social hall that is being used by the Nairobi City Council to rehabilitate street children was identified as another major threat to the schooling children. Wangare said: “These are no street children. They are teenagers and adults whose experiences in the fast lane of life have hardened them. To them, sex, drugs and money are issues they hold dear. To the unexposed children within this area, they represent a kind of gangsterism life that is exciting and adventurous. We demand that such rehabilitation centres be established far from family units.”

As Njoki Ndung’u sat listening pensively, accompanied by fellow legislator Amina Abdalla, the locals further complained that “these street children are even raping and defiling the very young within this area.” And the situation is not helped, they added, by the “reluctance of the local law enforcers to apprehend the offenders. It appears they (law enforcers are sympathetic or fearful of these street children being rehabilitated but not closed out from interacting with the normal societal order.” As a result, don’t care and expeditious lifestyles are getting copied by the schooling children thus spreading a cancer of collapsed seriousness within the other youngsters.

But the area District Officer Elias Kithaura says much the more the locals might be having a valid point, they too must, as parents, ask themselves whether they are not sharing the blame.

Kithaura especially says the area parents have fallen into the habit of drinking too much Chang’aa which they also brew locally. The administrator says perpetually drunk parents cannot be expected to offer moral guidance to their children and cannot be expected to be serious on academic matters of those same children. He further says some of the locals are “strong adherents of archaic traditions where they are even marrying off their daughters to elderly men.”

“We as the government will always move in to address all the concerns you have raised. But there is something else you are not raising: Your shortcomings as parents. You marry off a 12- year- old daughter. You send such a young girl to solicit for commercial sex in the name of supplementing your family income. You also keep school age children in your houses selling Chang’aa. Do you as parents factor in those facets of moral collapse into the myriads of problems you are citing?” he argued.

Njoki Ndung’u informed them that much of their grievances have been captured as offences in the Sexual Offences Bill that is awaiting presidential assent.

She further told them their education woes can also be lessened through the area MP Norman Nyaga. This through, she expounded, soliciting for funds from the Constituency Development Fund kitty to establish a more secure environment for rehabilitating street children.

Meanwhile, Kamukunji constituency, which hosts Pumwani division, utilized more than 90 percent of its 2003 CDF allocation in education related projects.

According to the figures available at the fund’s central Management committee, it is recorded that local primary and a few secondary schools were allocated the Sh6 million as follows: Education Bursary, Zawadi primary and Uhuru secondary Sh600,000 each, Muthurwa, Heshima primary schools as well as Eastleigh and St. Theresa secondary schools were allocated Sh200, 000 each, Morison and Bahati primary schools receiving Sh300, 000 each while Kamukunji primary received Sh234, 500. New Eastleigh primary received Sh150, 000.

However, that is the only allocation that has been utilized since all the other disbursements to the constituency for the years 2004/5 and 2005/6 are yet to be accounted for