Murang'a: County KNBS Report Ranked As Kenya's Cheating Capital

A report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) on Tuesday, January 17 put Murang'a County at the top of the rankings of the average number of sexual partners in their lifetime, across both genders.

Men in Murang'a County have an average of 14.1 sexual partners while women have an average of 3.3 sexual partners, for a county with a population of over 1 million, based on data from the 2019 census.

In comparison, the number of men in the county known historically for the Mau Mau uprising, with sexual partners is more than that of the entire country, with the average revealed to be 7.4 over women's 2.3.

The county is also top in the percentage of women with multiple sexual partners, more than anywhere else in Kenya, with a cumulative of 11 per cent. It was followed by 6.5 per cent from Kericho County and 6.2 per cent from Busia County.

Aerial view of tea farms in Murang'a County. /PINTEREST

With these statistics, Murang'a becomes the serial cheating capital of the whole country, a county known for notable names such as Sabina Chege, Mwangi wa Iria, Ndindi Nyoro, Peter Kenneth, Alice Wahome, Irungu Kang'ata among others.

Having multiple sex partners mean having more than one person that you engage in sexual activity with. There are many risks associated with having multiple sexual partners, such as an increased risk of pregnancy and transmitting a sexual disease.

However, some people believe that it’s natural to have multiple sex partners and that it can keep your sex life exciting if you’re not just having sex with one person. It is your personal choice to have sex with multiple people, however, you need to be careful particularly as it carries multiple risks, that is, the more sexual partners you have, the higher the risk of catching a sexually transmitted infection (STI).

There are many reasons why people have lots of sexual partners. This may be from the use of alcohol or drugs, which make you want more sex.

This may also be from the excitement that you get from having multiple partners, or that you feel liberated having casual sex with multiple partners.

Drugs or alcohol increase your chance of having risky sex and making decisions that you wouldn’t normally make in these situations; such as having unprotected sex if your judgement is clouded. If you’re having sex with multiple people, only one of them needs to be infected with an STI for it to be passed between everyone.

You can pass it to your partners, and if they’re all having sex with multiple partners this can be passed to their partners, and so on. You cannot ever be sure whether someone has an STI by just looking at them or their behaviour, so you need to make sure that you are extra careful and don’t take any unnecessary risks.

Among women but not men, the percentage who reported using a condom at last sex with a person who neither was their spouse nor lived with them decreased with age, from 46 per cent among women aged 15–19 to 29 per cent among women aged 30 to 49.

“Of those with more than one partner in the last 12 months, 24 per cent of women and 45 per cent of men reported using a condom during their last sexual intercourse,” KNBS report explained.

In the 12 months before the survey, 19 per cent of women had sex with a person who neither was their husband nor lived with them. Only 37 per cent of these women reported using a condom during their last sexual intercourse with such a partner.

“Thirty-five per cent of men reported having sex in the last 12 months with a person who neither was their wife nor lived with them, and 68 per cent of these men reported using a condom during their last sexual intercourse with such a partner,” it added.

The survey also revealed that women between the ages of 20 to 24 have the highest fertility rate in Kenya, a number established after observing the number of births per every 1,000 women in different parts of the nation.

The sample for the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) 2022 was drawn from the Kenya Household Master Sample Frame (K-HMSF), which is the frame that KNBS currently operates to conduct household-based sample surveys in Kenya. It was carried out from February 17 to July 13, 2022.