Earlier this week, a news story containing a disturbing statistics came to light that will shock most readers. Nearly, 5000 schoolgirls in Johannesburg, South Africa, became pregnant in just one school calendar year. Before you attribute this mass teenage pregnancy to rural illiteracy, lack of electricity, lack of television and all those excuses, let us call to mind that, three weeks ago, it was also reported that 90 girls were known to be pregnant in a single school in Tennessee, United States. This did not happen in a slum in Nairobi, Accra, Abuja, or Harare. It happened in the heart of the United States.
I am neither a sociologist nor a psychologist and so I will not attempt to ascribe rationale for these mass pregnancies. Some have referred to them as Pregnancy Pact, Pregnancy Covenant, and others.
The unfortunate situation is that some (may be most) of these girls would never become what they dreamed of becoming: teachers, pastors, parliamentarians, ambassadors, or doctors. Those who will ever get there will do it by the hard, tortuous way. As for the boys, on other hand, no problem. They can achieve whatever they want to achieve in life with minimal drag from the children who will result from these pregnancies. Some of them will later look down upon these girls as failures and fools.
I need to admit that I do not have data to base this on, but from my personal experience and assumptions, I would assume that most the boys or men involved in the adventure that led the girls into these situations knew of the plastic material called the condom. The never used it. On the other hand, and of course, this is my personal assumption; it is likely that most of the girls were oblivious of whatever options they had that could have prevented what they carry in their immature wombs.
How do we help young girls avoid these situations?
Give Women The Necessary Information:
As usual, many of the parents of these girls perhaps assumed their children were innocent. Well, they are not. In an interview with one of the South African to-be moms, this is what she said
“It’s fashionable to have a baby. You are like a fool if you don’t have sex”
As I have said here a few times, it is vital that parents, teachers and authorities provide young girls and women with the information they need and tell them they too have an option.
- They can say NO and IT IS OK TO SAY NO!
- If they cannot or do not want to say no, then they have an option, the female condom. The female condom is over 95% effective in preventing HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unwanted pregnancies. Most women have never heard this nor seen it. It’s shame and irresponsible that several years of campaigns have focused solely on the man and the options he has in sexual encounters. In the above unfortunate situation, it is easy to focus only on the teenage pregnancy, but it is important to realize that some of these girls that are not lucky may contract other STDs like Human Papiloma Virus/HPV, Herpes Simplex Virus/HSV, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and Syphillus.
By equipping these girls with ignorance, we are in essence, cursing their the futures.
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