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Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
ZIMBABWE is sitting on a 22 percent national teenage pregnancy rate while the latest HIV prevalence rate is at about 11,8 percent.
Teenage pregnancy is on the increase, which calls for the need to step up efforts to ensure early unintended pregnancies are nipped in the bud. It is estimated that about 70 000 unsafe abortions are performed in Zimbabwe, a sign that issues around Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) still need to be addressed in-depth and women and girls educated on the need to ensure they do not have unwanted pregnancies, Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV.
Advocacy Core Team coordinator Ms Diana Mailosi in a media training recently highlighted that conversations around access to SRHR services still need to be addressed in a bid to win the fight against the challenges affecting adolescents in Zimbabwe.
“We need to start talking about teenage pregnancies in the country. Right now as a country, we might be looking at it and not calling it a pandemic, but it is a pandemic. Almost every province is reporting the same thing, we have issues with our young girls and a lot of them are struggling to move from Grade Seven to Form One. As a country, why are we comfortable with that situation? We keep reading stories about young girls who are not able to visit health facilities to be able to access services after they have been abused, this is because those same parents whom we are saying should be having the best interests of the child are being paid to hide cases of sexual violence,” said Ms Mailosi.
She said it was disheartening to note that even perpetrators of sexual violence in some areas are getting their victims as wives because of cultural dictates which state that if one has had a sexual encounter with a girl, they are supposed to take them as their wife. Ms Mailosi said there is an urgent need to address issues of sex education for those below the age of 15 as some are affected by the tragedies affecting their counterparts.
“What are we doing to the young people? If we look at the HIV infection rates in the country, they are highest in our 15 to 19 age band and we don’t want to talk about those below 15, it is difficult to get that statistic in this country because we are trying to hide a pandemic we have. What we need to be able to do as a country is to talk about all these things that are happening and to see if these children are able to get the things that they need at the right moment. Young people are sexually active and parents may find it uncomfortable to talk about but those conversations are necessary and must be highlighted,” she added.
Ms Mailosi questioned why communities are watching as young people get HIV infections, early unintended pregnancies, and STIs instead of having uncomfortable conversations which will help them get the necessary assistance.
“We should continue to talk about abstinence in young people but what happens to those that can’t abstain? We need to be able to talk about how they can protect themselves and also how those that can’t rely on their parents for sexual health information can go elsewhere and access the necessary information.
We must see that they have options; can they go to their headman for assistance, a sister in charge at a local clinic? We’re just encouraging that in whatever programming we do, let’s not make the bodies of our young people the battlefield for some of the moral conversations that we may have,” she said.
Ms Mailosi said the country needs to have a clear plan and direction in assisting young people to access services that will ensure they are not victims of early pregnancies, STIs and HIV infection. She called for an all-stakeholder approach to tackle the matter.
“We need the church to continue to help us deal with some of the scourges that are being witnessed today at societal level. We need other players like chiefs and other traditional leaders to come in to assist those that are being abused in the communities. But until the law allows those stakeholders to come in and assist, then we will continue to see some of these staggering statistics around HIV, teenage pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and child marriages,” she added.
The Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey says about 41 percent of those between 15 and 19 actually know something about SRHR in Zimbabwe leaving 59 percent of the rest of that population in the dark, which leads to their failure to protect themselves.
“Roadside pharmacies” that are now common in most cities and towns in Zimbabwe have been the fall back plan for most teens who seek contraceptives and cannot access them at conventional health services owing to stigma. This has given rise to teens accessing expired drugs and condoms that further lead them to exposure to pregnancy and HIV.
Parents’ role in concealing sexual violence was also discouraged as they will be depriving their children from seeking life-saving interventions like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and an unwanted pregnancy. Ms Mailosi noted that peer influence cannot be ruled out as adolescents spend a lot of time together and encourage each other to engage in sexual intercourse.
“In some cases, children are then left alone as parents migrate for economic reasons and this leads to early sexual debut for many children who are left unattended in the home with other children,” she said.
It was also highlighted that young people face a predicament where they fail to access SRHR services because of stringent policies which compel health facilities to request that a child seeking some medical intervention comes with a parent. This has been cited as a barrier to access as young people in many cases are not having conversations around pregnancies and STIs with their parents such that when they do require the services, they cannot consult the parents but would rather go alone.
Ms Mailosi said Advocacy Core Team wants to expand the protection offered to young people to enable them to seek SRHR help alone than to discourage them from coming to health institutions by demanding that they show up with a parent.
The National Aids Council is implementing Sista2Sista clubs where they seek to build social awareness, increase social aptitudes, and increase sexual knowledge and functional knowledge for young girls. This, they said, is aiding in keeping young girls in school and free from HIV and teenage pregnancies.
Some of the beneficiaries of the programme said before they joined the club, they were unaware of the dangers of unprotected sex such as HIV infection, STIs, and unwanted pregnancies. — @NyembeziMu
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