The scourge of teenage pregnancies

She speaks with regret and pain painted on her face. Words explaining when she was raped and impregnated by a male friend in wee hours come from far like an elderly person climbing a hill. She labours to control tears as she reflects on the agony that came with that incident.
Mary Lydia Kafuko, 17, who has just completed her Primary Leaving Exams (PLE) at Agule Primary School in Pallisa District, experienced a nightmare in 2015 when a male family friend raped her on their way from a club.

Kafuko says she was persuaded by her age mates who were also her relatives to go clubbing but they promised to return home with her before 10pm. The agreement was broken 10 minutes to 10pm when the girls she had gone with to the club disappeared.
Since her home was about a kilometre from town, she could not risk walking alone thus she looked for people she knew who could escort her home. She chanced on two male family friends who told her to wait for them as they were to escort her home. Little did she know that she was entrusting a snake with eggs.

“We left the club at midnight. This was after I pleaded with them to take me home. On our way, they started making sex advances on me but I declined. Out of the blue one boy wrestled me down and raped me,” Kafuko says.
She says the boy convinced her not to report because he could be arrested. She too was scared of revealing the scenario to her parents since they had not informed them when she was going to the club. She made up her mind to keep the incident to herself but she was found to be pregnant three months later.

“When the pregnancy tests turned positive, I informed the boy who had raped me. He tried to deny and I informed my parents of the ordeal and they were bitter ordering me to leave home,” she says.
Left with no option, Kafuko walked to the culprit’s parents who hesitantly accepted her as their daughter in-law. She says they accommodated her for fear that their son could be apprehended but did not give her any care. The worse turned worst when the child she had delivered passed on.
“The boy who raped me was in secondary school with no job thus had had no means to look after the baby. The baby died due to lack of basic care such as clothes and medicine,” Kafuko says.

Owing to the baby’s demise Kafuko was branded various names by in-laws who occasionally called her as a curse insisting that family does not lose children at a young age. Every problem that happened to any family member was blamed on Kafuko who was seen to have an omen.
“My husband’s parents told me to leave saying there was no reason to stay in their home besides being an omen. They told me in their history they had never had a member who lost a child. I was always given difficult work until I got tired and decided to quit,” she narrates.
Kafuko rushed to her aunt with a determination to do better with her life. The aunt led her back to the parents’ home and apologised on her behalf for whatever she had done wrong and convinced her parents to accept her again.

“I am happy that my parents accepted me again as their child. It was my fault to go clubbing without their knowledge and I landed in problems. I feared facing them again and I will forever be grateful to my aunt who convinced them to accept me again,” she says.
She returned to school in 2017 with the help of Visionary Led Foundation, an NGO, and she has just sat for her PLE exams. Kafuko dreams of becoming an accountant and vows to do whatever it takes to achieve her dream.

Interventions
Speaking at National Girls Summit recently, Drake Rukundo, a consultant on the design of Uganda’s second national development plan, reasoned that a lot needs to be done to make parents understand that they need to support their teenagers and adolescents whenever they encounter challenges.

He says many teenagers find themselves in terrible situations because parents or guardians become another problem to them instead of understanding their situations and guide them appropriately.
To address issues like Kafuko’s and others facing girls, Rukundo calls for increased focus on adolescent health. He condemns exploitation of girls by men, diminishing role of the parent, limited follow-up on cases and believes child mothers can rebuild their lives when it is made possible for them. “We should emphasise a rights based approach in programme design and implementation but this also requires backing of economic empowerment,” Rukundo explains.

Jean Paul Murunga, an expert on harmful practices at Equality Now, an International NGO that works to protect and promote the rights of women and girls, says matters of violence against adolescents and teenagers need to be addressed with urgency since their problems have long term impacts.
“When a girl is defiled and impregnated today, her future is shuttered and the effects will live with her for a lifetime. We can avoid cases of teenage pregnancies by giving teenagers right information to protect themselves and teach them how to deal with growth changes.