First Lady links teen pregnancies to rampant incest
Education minister Janet Museveni addresses journalists at State House Nakasero on May 4, 2022. PHOTO | FRANK BAGUMA
What you need to know:
- While launching the Forum for African Women Educationists (FAWE) Silver Jubilee celebrations yesterday, Ms Museveni attributed the rampant pregnancies among teenage and school going girls to incest.
The Minister of Education, Ms Janet Museveni, has said government is launching a national campaign to expose defilers and those responsible for teenage pregnancies so as to protect girls from sexual abuse.
While launching the Forum for African Women Educationists (FAWE) Silver Jubilee celebrations yesterday, Ms Museveni attributed the rampant pregnancies among teenage and school going girls to incest.
“Incest goes on unabated in some families. This is both a cultural and religious abomination and breach of trust between our generation and that of our children, especially girls,” Ms Museveni, who is also the patron of FAWE, said.
She added: “Similarly, with the overwhelming influence of unregulated Internet and social media, cultural and religious values that honour the sanctity of marriage and innocence of children have been largely overlooked by society.”
The First Lady revealed that the campaign funded by Unicef and UNFPA was prompted by results of a study conducted by FAWE last year concerning the impact of Covid-19.
The study revealed a 22.5 percent increase in pregnancies of young women aged between 10 and 24 from 80,655 March 2020, to 98,810 in June 2020, and a 366 percent increase in pregnancies among girls aged between 10 to 15 years.
Ms Museveni said the findings threaten to undermine progress that government has made to achieve gender equity in the last 25 years.
Ms Susan Opok Tumusiime, the executive director FAWE Uganda, said they launched their Silver Jubilee celebrations to observe 25 years of supporting education of vulnerable girls as well as present findings on the impact of Covid-19 on school going girls aged between 10 and 24.
“There was so much media information indicating that there was increased teenage pregnancies and gender based sexual violence, and we wanted to find out whether girls were engaging in sex as an economic activity,” she said.
She added that as part of the Silver Jubilee celebrations, they are also encouraging Ugandans to donate money to give 2,000 girls, who dropped out of school, a second chance to get education instead of relying on foreign donors.
