Gusii men have been accused of being an obstacle to the uptake of family planning services among women of reproductive age from the community.
Daraja United Women and Youth Empowerment Organization (Dauwoye) chief executive officer, Winfred Abuya, blames the Gusii community's conservative patriarchal culture for depriving women of their reproductive health rights.
He says women in the region are denied the right to decide on the number of children to give birth to and family planning methods of their choice.
Speaking to this writer on Thursday morning at her Kisii town office, Abuya said the situation is so worrying that majority of the women from the community have no choice over their sexual and reproductive health rights.
"In such a scenario, men from the community who are naturally the custodians of their community's culture, dictate the number of children a woman has to give birth to, without seeking her consent on the matter which affects her sexuality and reproductive health as well," said Abuya.
She says a majority of the women from such cultural backgrounds continue giving birth to children they cannot take care of.
"Though family planning remains a right of men and women to decide the number, timing, and spacing of their children, statistics indicate that over 100 million women from developing countries who are married or living with men, report that their needs for contraceptives remain unmet," observes Abuya.
She challenges communities to respect women's sexual and reproductive health rights, to allow them make informed decisions on the number of children they should have and the family planning method they should use in planning their families.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) indicates that family planning is important for both the health of the child and mother and for the economic situation of the family.
The USAID further notes that having children less than two years apart can have health consequences for both the mother and children.
According to the Agency, the best health outcomes are in families where children are born two to three years apart and to mothers not younger than 18 years old.
The agency says that delaying or spacing pregnancies more often than not has financial benefits for mothers and their families.