The Sunday News
ZIMBABWE has recorded a sharp increase in teenage pregnancies in a space of five years, with most of the adolescent pregnancies being recorded in rural areas, a trend analysts have attributed to poverty and cultural practices.
According to the Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS) of 2010 to 2011 the fertility rate among teenage girls aged 15-19 increased from 99 per 1 000 girls to 115 per 1 000 between 2005 and 2010.
According to the survey rural girls start childbearing earlier than their urban counterparts due to poverty, with the fertility rate among rural girls pegged at 144 per 1 000 girls compared to 70 per 1 000 girls in urban areas.
At least 28 percent of women who first had sexual intercourse before the age of 15 report that the sex was forced against their will, the survey notes.
The data also shows that about 24 percent of women aged between 15 and 19 years old have begun childbearing with the number of teenagers who have had a live birth rising rapidly with age, from three percent at the age of 15 years to 41 percent at the age of 19 years.
It is further noted in the survey that teenage pregnancies were one of the major causes of maternal and under five mortality in the country, while teenage mothers were more vulnerable to pregnancy-related complications.
“The issue of adolescent fertility is important on both health and social grounds. Children born to very young mothers are at increased risk of sickness and death. Teenage mothers are more likely to experience adverse pregnancy outcomes and are also more constrained in their ability to pursue educational opportunities than young women who delay childbearing.
“Rural teenagers, those with less education, and those in the lowest wealth quintile tend to start childbearing earlier than other teenagers,” reads an excerpt from the ZDHS.
MDC legislator Ms Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga frowned at the high number of teenage pregnancies being recorded in the country, describing the trend as disgusting.
She blamed the high fertility rate among teenagers on “sanitisation” of adolescent pregnancies by society.
“It’s totally disgusting! I think one of the problems is that we have tried to sanitise these crimes by calling them teenage marriages, teenage pregnancies and so on. We should start calling these crimes by their actual names and that will help define exactly how we should deal with them.
“What used to be shocking, seeing a 10-year-old pregnant is no longer shocking because society has sanitised it.
“The best and only way we can deal with teenage pregnancies is by putting deterrent punishments for men who have sex with young girls. The way a person understands that stealing a cow will land them in jail for 10 years should be the same way a person who sleeps with a young girl should know that it’s wrong. As long as perpetrators feel it is okay to abuse these girls we will continue having teenage pregnancies going up,” she said.
Ms Musihairabwi-Mushonga added that one of the major drivers of early marriages and teenage pregnancies in the country was the high school dropout rate among girls, which she said left a number of girls vulnerable to abuse by older man.
Her remarks were backed by development analyst Mr Enock Musara who pointed out religious and cultural practices, social relations and gender imbalances as some of the factors leading to adolescent pregnancies being more prevalent among rural girls.
“The rural environment is not friendly to the girl child. It leaves her vulnerable. For example if in a family there is a boy and a girl and parents are struggling to send both to school, parents often decide to send the boy to school while the girl stays at home. That redundancy will leave her vulnerable to abuse as on most occasions marriage appears to her as her only escape route from her family’s poverty.
“Cultural and religious practices that condone child marriages are also prevalent in rural areas and that again leaves the girl child more vulnerable to abuse in the form of forced marriages,” he said.
Mr Musara said the best ways to address the issue of adolescent marriages was to educate the young girls on sex and sexuality as well as eradicating gender imbalances between the girl and boy child.
“There is generally lack of adequate and accurate information on puberty especially in the rural areas, which often leaves young people dependent on uninformed peer sources.
“Adolescents should be equipped with enough information on sexual and reproductive health to enable them to make informed choices. That, coupled with dealing with gender imbalances, we will make significant strides in dealing with child marriages and teenage pregnancies,” he said.
Gender activist Mrs Vimbai Nhutsve-Musengi added that Government should put in place and ensure full implementation of laws that adequately protect the girl child from abuse.
“Our laws have loopholes. We have often seen people walking free after corrupting young girls. We need strict laws and deterrent punishments against those who abuse children.
“That way we can be able to change society’s attitude towards teenage pregnancies and get its buy-in in fighting the scourge,” she said.
In recent weeks the country has been debating over the legal age of consent to sexual intercourse with magistrates being accused of lowering the consent age to 12 and also giving lenient sentences to child abusers.
The debate saw Prosecutor General Mr Johannes Tomana being caught up in a storm following media reports that he suggested girls as young as 12 could marry.
