According to the Health Information System survey,4000 school girls in Machakos have tested positive for pregnancy. Machakos county is in the Northeastern province of Kenya. This data reflects a five months survey. However, the numbers are still increasing since the health official report states that in every week, 200 teenagers test positive for pregnancy.
What causes school girls unwanted pregnancies?
Most of the girls are aged 19 years and below. These unwanted pregnancies are because of the irresponsible relationship among teens. These relationships are mostly because of peer pressure among the youth. There are some exceptional cases, for instance, when a 40-year-old man raped his 12-year-old niece.
Failure of parents to look after these adolescent girls has contributed to the pregnancies. Why? They have so much freedom while away from their parents.
Most of these youths are self-isolating in the villages under their grandparents’ watch.
Experts advise parents should not just send their kids to the countryside but keep them under watch since they are vulnerable to a lot of harm.
“Most of these cases you will find involve children who were taken from urban centers in the wake of Covid-19 and left in the hands of their grandmothers in the countryside as the parents returned to the towns, ” Ms. Muthama told reporters in Machakos Town.
Machakos Children county officer states most of these pregnancies are because close family members defile these youthful girls. She says most of these girls are innocent. The cases of innocent 12-year-old girls getting pregnant angered Ms. Muthama.
She appealed to courts to arrange for sittings to address such matters, especially those defiling the innocent girls. Muthama demands justice for these innocent souls.
” Courts should arraign all the people who have impregnated these children, but it is becoming a challenge. We need special court sittings to address and deal with these cases,” Salome appealed.
Effects of unwanted pregnancies
Unwanted pregnancies in the country may cause forced marriages. Especially in the local areas. Since becoming a mother isn’t a walk in the park, it will force some of these girls to enroll for manual labor to take care of their young ones.
It is also a challenge pursuing an education while pregnant because it comes with exhaustion, hence one concentrates less. Sometimes, pregnant school girls face a lot of discrimination walking in swollen tummies. Often no scholar wants to associate with them.
In most cases, life is never the same after one bears a child at the wrong time. Why? It forces a junior mother to divert all her attention to the baby. Such that she forgets about taking care of herself as most of the time it’s the baby. Meanwhile, this results in her dreams getting shattered.
Therefore, during such times parents should ensure the safety of their children. It is better to protect their children from harm rather than promote the destruction of their future.
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