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Teenage pregnancy and child marriages are very rampant in Uganda at the moment. However, State Minister for youth affairs Sarah Mateke has encouraged Ugandans to increase efforts to end this bad habit in the country.
She did this while speaking during the dissemination of the second national strategy to end child marriage and teenage pregnancy. This went down at the Admas Hotel in Entebbe. She said teenage pregnancy and child marriage violate the rights for children and ought to be fought.
“Because child marriage and teenage pregnancy is a human rights violation, it’s a child-rights violation, it deprives girls, families and communities of their lives and futures. It undermines our efforts towards gender equality. And it deprives our country of productive human resource and it increases the national burden of care for vulnerable children,” Mateke said.
She talked about how the Covid-19 pandemic worsened this situation while quoting 2021 statistics from the United Nations Population Fund(UNFPA).
2020 registered 354,736 teenage pregnancies registered and 290,219 in 2021. This showed an average of 32,000 teenage pregnancies per month.
She also said statistics have shown that many girls were defiled by parents, teachers and caretakers. She further added that it is that time Ugandans should take part in fighting this state of affairs.
“We want to create a better community where our children can grow up better but it has to start at the family level where if the family is doing well, then everything well be better.”
She said that fighting this vice should not be a job for the government only, but for everyone in society.
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