Non-governmental organisations in the Northern Cape say the increasing rate of teenage pregnancy in schools is worrying.
It has emerged in a meeting that the education departments and the organisations held to discuss teenage pregnancy that the problem is causing an increase in school dropouts.
The province recorded more than 5 000 teenage pregnancies from April 2020 to June 2021.
A Kimberley based 20-year-old girl fell pregnant at the age of 15 after she was raped allegedly by a man known to the family in 2015.
Following her pregnancy, the girl had to drop out of school. She says the experience has changed her life forever.
“I was miserable. I was scared to tell my mother. I was scared. My sister found out that I was pregnant then my mother said she will accept my baby.”
The girl’s mother says they were devastated after her alleged rapist denied the allegations and that the child was his.
Collaborations
According to Statistics South Africa – more than 45 000 births in 2021 were from mothers aged 17 years and younger; and 42 of these births were from mothers between the ages of 11 and 12 years.
Meanwhile, non-governmental organisation Batho Pele representative, Thapelo Mookwa, has appealed for collaborative efforts in order to tackle teenage pregnancies.
“We are appealing to the community to say let us educate our children while they are still young. Let us have education programs. Let’s work with the Department of Education. It must be a multi-sectoral thing, so we are saying to the department, let the NGOs work in schools to be able to assist.”
Meanwhile, poverty and a lack of sex education have been identified as some of the contributing factors leading to the high teenage pregnancy rate in South Africa.
More details in the report below:
