The rate of teenage pregnancies in the Eastern Cape has become a major concern, particularly in the OR Tambo district municipality, which leads for the second year in a row with 1 269 pregnancies reported.
Other high statistics include those from the Alfred Nzo district municipality with 681, Nelson Mandela Bay municipality (506) and Chris Hani district municipality (489).
Because the age of consent in South Africa is 16, in 2021, the Department of Basic Education compelled schools to report the pregnancies of underage girls to police.
The department also changed the Employment of Educators Act so that a teacher found having a sexual relationship with or sexually abusing a pupil, is to be banned from teaching for life, reports the Daily Dispatch.
Mancane Futhwa, project manager of non-profit organisation Bumbingomso, said the main causes of teenage pregnancies were lack of parental supervision, a lost sense of moral responsibility and lack of long-term contraceptives.
“There are many young parents raising children on their own,” Futhwa said, “but they leave them behind when they go to work, so the children seek attention elsewhere – which is when they get involved in these problems.”
There were also numerous teachers having sex with minors.
“The teenagers do not disclose who impregnated them because they are scared. Or they are bribed financially,” he said.
Access to contraception was also an issue, and he said campaigns were needed at government level to “drive the issue of long-term contraceptives”.
Masimanyane Women’s Rights International founder and director Dr Lesley Ann Foster said society needed to become more conscious. “We have to build the agency of young women, teach them to know their rights.”
Foster said teenagers who had babies tended to drop out of school, lacked maturity to raise a child and did not have the resources to do so.
In its health report, the Mbhashe sub-district flagged problems with pregnancies in girls aged from as young as 10 up to 19. During the 2022/2023 financial year, from April to March, health facility deliveries were up 19.5% and youngsters in the area aged from 10 to 19 accounted for most of the unwanted pregnancies.
Provincial Health Department spokesperson Yonela Dekeda said the department continued to implement various strategies to reduce teenage pregnancies, and was introducing “youth zones”.
“These intend to create a conducive environment for young people to access services and openly interact with healthcare providers, without feeling judged.”
Other strategies involved a memorandum of understanding with institutions of higher learning for easy access to emergency tablets, and family planning on campus.
DispatchLIVE article – Surge in Eastern Cape teen pregnancies (Restricted access)
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