By Rose Cross

Mzuzu, May 15, Mana: Despite efforts to promote girls’ education and empowerment in the country, child marriages and early pregnancies continue slowing down and counteracting efforts in promoting girls’ education.

Random interviews with different institutions, including some youth in Mzimba North and Mzuzu City have revealed that some of the factors fueling early marriages and teen pregnancies include high poverty levels, limited access to Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRH) Services and poor parental support.

A young bride, Salomy Jere who got pregnant soon after enrolling for her first year in college at the age of 17, argued that there was need for increased access to SRHR education and services to enable young people, including girls to have an option to protect themselves from such sexual mishaps.

“When I got pregnant, I lived in regret and couldn’t go back home to my mother who is a single parent; as such I had to get married. I didn’t plan on getting pregnant but doing sex for fun made it happen.

“I believe if there can be intensive education on SRHR, situations like what I went through can be limited,” Jere said, holder of Diploma in Business Management.

Executive Director for Citizen Impact Organisation (CIO), Chimwemwe Banda concurred with Jere, saying most parents and guardians do not open up to their girl children on sexual relationship issues such that girls get either incomplete or wrong information from peers and some people who advance for them.

“Aside creating more spaces for girls to access sexual reproductive health services, girls need information for them to be empowered   to them to have self- esteem so that they request or access the services as their right.

“The issue of child marriages is directly connected to early pregnancies because most girls who enter into early marriage are forced into it after falling pregnant,” she said, whose organization was establishing community hubs where girls who are withdrawn from marriages meet and send back to school.

Founder and Director for Uchembere Wabwino, a Reproductive Health Facility in the heart of Mzuzu City, Lucy Msukwa acknowledged that teen pregnancy was a challenge which shouldn’t be ignored by government and stakeholders if girl education and empowerment was to be achieved.

She disclosed that the facility treats a minimum of three cases related to teen pregnancies each week, a development that forced the organisation to introduce “Uchembere Youth for Change”, a youth outreach programme which engages secondary school going youth on SRH services.

“Through the initiative, we go to secondary schools and interface students on the importance of abstinence and dangers of teen pregnancies among others. We also discuss with them various entrepreneurial skills such as making floor polish from recycled plastics and fire briquettes.

“Aside intensifying health education provision to the youths, there is also need to create more flexible health care tools and procedures so that health facilities and workers are accommodative to youths,” Msukwa added.

She observed that a lot still needs to be done by both government and non-state actors in censoring SRH information which was meant for the youth consumption.

“I feel information should center more on the preventive side other than concentrating on contraceptives which brings more complications when not properly used,” the Director said.

Amidst challenges of limited information and access to SRH services, Executive Director for Judith Foundation, an institution which offers education bursary schemes to secondary school girls in Mzimba North District, Judith Chbambo discovered that girls need formal education to beat financial woes affecting their respective homes.

“A girl who does not know her rights will continuously be a victim of abuse including being sent into early marriage.

“There is need for the girls to be provided with formal education so that they can voice out their concerns and beat poverty,” she noted.

Chibambo acknowledged that the fight is not only to prevent teen pregnancies, but to restore the honor of those who were already been defiled.

“While preventing teen girls from getting pregnant is the main goal, we should not leave behind those who fell pregnant and this is why as an organization, we are supporting those who were once pregnant to go back to school.

“We need to be there to tell them that all is not lost,” she said.

Chibambo was optimistic that consolidated efforts in implementing initiatives that encourage girl education are the way to go.

“It is true that teen pregnancies and early marriages are affecting the outcome of our efforts in fostering girl education since when a beneficiary drops out, we need to find a replacement and such expenses are difficult to justify to donors.

“We always look at the brighter side of this all. If we work together and intensify efforts to reduce and indeed curb such pregnancies, there will be no school dropout; at the same time, we feel the gaps created by drop outs can be filled by those that are re-admitted after delivering their child,” she added.

District Youth Officer (DYO) for Mzimba North and responsible for Mzuzu City, Misheck Msokwa said his office was scaling up civic education activities as a way of ensuring that young girls are get necessary information for them to develop into their full potential.

“We are aware that some of these challenges are escalated by harmful cultural practices which are exposse young girls to early sexual activities. We are working with community youth hubs so that we reaching out too, to many youths with information on the dangers of indulging in early sexual activities.

“We are working with stakeholders to provide various skills to youths as a means of reducing their financial challenges which are some of the drivers of such practices,” he said.

Recently, Deputy Minister of Health, Halima Daudi disclosed that cases of teenage pregnancies are at 29 percent.

She urged stakeholders to reflect on potential factors influencing such incidents in different parts of the country.

Daudi was speaking during the launching ceremony of a Faith Based Approach to SRHR sexual at Ntaja in Machinga District.