Lockdown has coincided with an increase in teenage pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa, where a million pregnant teens face difficulties in returning to school.
According to World Vision, a humanitarian aid organisation, teenage pregnancy spiked during the Covid-19 crisis, and is now is threatening to bar one million girls across sub-Saharan Africa from returning to school.
In a study titled "Covid-19 Aftershock: Access Denied", the organisation says the pandemic caused “additional and unanticipated disruption. School closures during crises can result in girls spending more time with men and boys than they would were they in school, leading to greater likelihood of engagement in risky sexual behaviour and increased risk of sexual violence exploitation.”
The study went on to say that the rate of teenage pregnancy was linked to the lack of sexual and reproductive health services and increased poverty and insecurity.
Thami Makuzeni, of the Public Servants Association (PSA) in the Eastern Cape, said there were “quite a few schools” in the province where the PSA “observed a number of pregnancies. Covid-19 has been the main contributing factor, it has caused a lot of damage all round.”
Makuzeni said pupils needed to be kept busy with educational or recreational activities.
“The department of education is lacking in investing in education where children are kept busy.
“This was proven during the lockdown where children were sitting idle at home doing nothing,” Makuzeni said.
“When learners are at home their minds need to be active at all times and to forget about things like pregnancy. The reason they do that is because they are bored,” Makuzeni said.
Makuzeni said pupils needed to be empowered and encouraged to envision “a better tomorrow for themselves”.
“We challenge the department to practice what they preach because we always hear that ‘education is the future’ and that ‘education is key to success’. We need to invest more in education instead of doing the opposite,” Makuzeni said.
An inquiry sent to education spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima was unanswered by print deadline on Monday.
According to the World Vision study, “in times of crisis, harmful gender norms and sexual violence are often exacerbated. School closures in response to crisis further increase the chances that adolescent girls will be exposed to different forms of gender-based violence and the risk of teenage pregnancy where incidence of sexual violence has been heightened”.
The study says adolescent mothers are often faced with shame and stigma, preventing them from returning to school.
“Pregnancy often makes returning to school extremely difficult for girls.
“In many conservative cultures, stigma about adolescent pregnancy and harmful social norms about pregnancy outside of marriage is strong.”
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