New approaches needed for pregnant schoolgirls
The out-of-control cases of teenage pregnancies across the country demand urgent and new approaches to sort out the resultant mess. See ‘Lockdown worsens teenage pregnancies’, Daily Monitor, September 29, 2020.
As the lockdown from coronavirus rolls into next year, the situation will escalate before school reopens for every learner. Already, in only the first three months of the lockdown, at least 2,730 teenage pregnancies were registered, according to the Minister of State for Youth and Children Affairs, Ms Florence Nakiwala.
Mbarara District alone registered 1,363 teenage pregnancies while Pakwach District recorded another 577 pregnant teenage schoolgirls, with 500 of them from a single sub-county, Wadelai. These plights of our little girls are widespread across the country, including in Mityana, Kamuli, Gulu, Naggalama and Kiryandongo districts.
The fear here is; as schools reopen, some of these little girls will likely be locked out and their future too, shuttered.
The big gap here are both innocence and ignorance about sex education and use of contraceptives, including condoms, to which access and use is unknown to the adolescents. The young girls are thus unwittingly lured into sexual liaisons whose dangers are unknown to them.
This awkward predicament, which is fed by out-of-school idleness among our youths, calls for quick thinking on how to save the future of these teenage girls.
The majority will, perhaps, have their education cut short as they become mothers before their time, and unable to provide quality care to their children. This cycle of poverty is bound to be replicated across their generations.
The good news is that most of these girls are desirous to return to school to secure a better future. What is required is pushing the dreams of these teenagers and saving them from dropping out of school. Their becoming premature mothers should not condemn them and their children to an uncertain future.
Surely, our teenage girls can be saved and teenage mothers pick up the pieces and catch up with the temporarily lost opportunities. Despite the trauma and likely stigma, they should be allowed back in school to pursue their dreams.
As a way forward, the propositions by Health ministry publicist Emmanuel Ainebyoona and Mr Charles Owekomeno of Sexual Reproductive Alliance should be pursued.
Their suggestion for government to create multi-sectoral approaches to address reproductive needs and challenges of our young girls and boys during this lockdown is for uptake.
Such collaborative approaches can include community and local leaders’ outreaches or family planning clinics and counselling sessions to save our teenage girls from premature teenage pregnancies.
