Kids are adorable. Most of us want to have at least two kids.
However, at 30 years, Gentrix Wekesa has 10 kids and is not about to stop. Her husband wants 22 children.
Wekesa hails from Navakholo village in Kakamega, a region where men object to family planning.
She says her husband has objected to family planning which she talked to him about.
He has 20 children hitherto, and is looking for two more to hit 22 so that “his seat among men is solidified.”
Wekesa is expecting her eleventh child while her 10th born is barely a year old.
She took a family planning shot three years ago but is back in the game once more.
“I went to hospital and got a three-year injection. I told my husband I needed a break so I could fend for the rest, then later I would resume giving birth as he wished,” she told TV47 in an interview.
In the Luhya community, Bunyala men are opposed to their women using contraceptives. They believe that their status in the society increases with the more children they have.
Therefore, they view contraceptives as a big hurdle to their endeavor in having many children.
A section of Banyala elders holds that having many children fulfills God’s directive to fill the eart.
Thus, the use of family planning is going against what God ordered.
Nonetheless, another group of Banyala men say that hard economic times have forced them to rethink their childbearing stand.
