Teenage pregnancies are a pandemic on its own, say...

Teenage pregnancies are a pandemic on its own, says civil society

Patricia Mashiri

Civil society has bemoaned continuous rise of teenage pregnancies in the country with less or no efforts being done to protect the girl child.

Statistics shows that the national rate of teenage pregnancies stands at 22%, which translates into one in every five girls which is 17% have, and 5% are expecting.

Speaking during a science café, Diana Mailosi, Advocacy Core Team COMPASS Project Coordinator said there should be conversations around teenage pregnancies and how they can be reduced.

“Right now, as a country we might not be looking at it and calling it a pandemic but it is. We are seeing almost every province reporting the same thing. Our young girls are falling pregnant and a lot of them are struggling to move from grade seven to form one.

“We keep seeing stories of sexual abuse of young people that are not able to go to a health facility to access a after they have been abused because the same parents that we are saying are supposed to have the best interest of their child are being paid to hide the cases of sexual violence. We are seeing perpetrators of violence getting their victims of violence as wives because in our culture, we say once someone has slept with you are already their wife,” Mailosi said.

The Zimbabwe demographic and health survey highlighted the lack of comprehensive information and knowledge among adolescents.

48% of young people do not know their HIV status despite the high new infections between ages 19-24. One quarter of the new HIV infections are in adolescents and young people within the ages 15-24.

“If you look at our HIV infection rate in the country it is highest between 15-19 old girls. What we need to be able to do is start talking about all these things that are happening and are they able to get the assistance they need in the right moments they need it. Can a girl that has been sexually abused be able to walk in a facility and gets necessary support she needs in terms of counselling, therapy and post exposure prophylaxis?.

“We need to talk among other things our young people are engaging in sex which is something not comfortable as parents to think about, talk and accept but we do need to highlight the fact that young people are engaging. Are we saying we are comfortable with them getting HIV, STIs and pregnancy instead of saying can they get access to services so they can avoid. We should continue talking about abstinence, but what happens to those that can’t abstain,” she added.

The civil society organisations are also appealing for the amendment of the Public Health Act section 35 (2) b and c, which states that children shall not be provided with health services without the consent of parents or guardians.

“We need to be able to talk about those that can not rely on their parents to be able to go somewhere else to get necessary services they need for example can they go to a neighbor is the parent is the perpetrator of sexual violence. Whatever we do let’s not make the body of young people a battlefield of some of the moral conversations that we may have.

“So, I’m encouraging us as a country to start thinking about how do we start to assist our young people to stop those pregnancies. Its not access to health that is needed we need all stakeholders to onboard but until the law allows some of the stakeholders to assist, we will continue to see some of these staggering statistics of teenage pregnancies, unsafe abortions, HIV, early marriages,” Mailosi said.

15% of the national maternity mortality rate is made up of adolescents and young people with one in three occurring among women aged 20-14 are maternal in nature.