The Daily Mail, a UK Newspaper, has exposed a coin-tossing ritual that new recruits were subjected to upon deployment in Kenya.
In an article featured in the publication's sister outlet the Mail on Sunday, the outlet claimed that the new recruits were expected to have sex with prostitutes to prove how brave they were.
Their seniors would toss a coin which would determine whether the recruit would be allowed to use a condom.
The outlet indicated that its reporting was based on a study that was published in the British Medical Journal Military Health.
"When this unit deploys on exercise (to the British Army Training Unit Kenya), they have an initiation ceremony for all the new soldiers who haven't deployed to Kenya before.
"The more senior soldiers would flip a coin – heads you could use a condom, tails you could not" the study quoted a soldier.
The study, therefore, threw into question the safety of the soldiers including exposing them to sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV.
A former official from the UK government told the press that sexual health formed part of training before the British soldiers were deployed in Kenya.
"Sexual health is a part of annual training for all service personnel," stated former Army intelligence officer Philip Ingram.
"To hear that soldiers are being forced into some form of sexual initiation ceremony... where HIV rates are very high shocks me to the core. (It) once again highlights a failure in leadership and that the culture in the Army is still fundamentally broken."
This comes as the Labour Party of the UK promises to investigate conclusively the case of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan lady who was murdered in 2012.
It is alleged that she was murdered by British soldiers who were last seen with her on March 31, 2012. The soldiers are said to have been stationed in Nanyuki at the time of her death.
