In just five months, at least 150 young girls aged 10 to 14 years have given birth in the Free State province this year, raising alarm across the nation.
The shocking statistics were revealed by the Free State provincial department of health this week.
The alarming statistics have resulted in a number of organisations calling for urgent intervention and prosecution of those responsible for the pregnancies with many calling for it to be labelled what it is – statutory rape.
Mmusi Maimane’s new political party, Build One SA (Bosa) said this “burgeoning crisis” has health and socio-economic implications and negative effects on the education of girl children in particular, and called for an urgent report on the prosecution rate for statutory rape over past five years.
“But most importantly, many of these pregnancies are consequences of sexual crimes: rape and statutory rape, which routinely go unpunished. Girls in this country are being violated every day. The perpetrators are often trusted figures in these young girls’ lives,” said Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster, deputy leader of Bosa.
Bosa further stated that any response to the growing teenage pregnancy crisis needed to be multi-faceted and proposed that South African laws on sexual consent be changed to protect children better.
Hlazo-Webster said power dynamics existed even between children of different ages and this should be accounted for.
“There must be prosecutions. In communities where ubuntu is revived, perpetrators will be exposed.”
It also called for healthcare to be accessible and democratised for rural girls.
In addition to their proposed solutions, Hlazo-Webster said they would also approach Police Minister Bheki Cele to request a comprehensive report on the state of arrests and prosecutions of those accused of statutory rape over the past five years.
The Free State statistics also revealed that just over 14 000 teen-girls aged 15 to 19 years gave birth in the past year while 2100 pregnancy terminations were recorded among those aged between 10 and 19 years.
The Thabo Mofutsanyana District in the Free State recorded the highest cases of teenage pregnancy.
In an interview with the national broadcaster, SABC, spokesperson for Free State Department of Health, Mondli Mvambi described the realisation as a “disturbing phenomenon”.
“We’ve got a high rate of children that are having children, from 10 years up until 12, from 13 years we see also up until 16 years children, the youth in teenage pregnancy,” he said.
While there are clearly an alarmingly high number of young girls bearing children, Mvambi said there were unfortunately not many criminal cases being opened to determine if statutory rape was the cause of these pregnancies.
“The suspicion is that these are issues that are happening among the community and among people who know each other.
“The socio-economic factors might also be at play.
“They rob children of their childhood,” Mvambi said.
He added that strengthening the youth-friendly zones and clinics which cater for sex education for young people and encourage family planning would help in reducing unwanted pregnancies.
In June this year, Minister of Social Development Lindiwe Zulu called on government departments to work together in addressing the scourge of high teenage pregnancies.
Zulu was speaking at KwaMbonambi in Richards Bay northern KwaZulu-Natal where she interacted with young people from the area during Child Protection Week.
During that time, it was revealed that Umkhanyakude District Municipality had some of the highest numbers of teenage girls who fell pregnant
It was reported that there were 269 girls aged between 10 and 14 who gave birth in the district last year.
Zulu called for a joint strategy by all government departments to combat pregnancy among teenagers.
“We must accept the fact that this is something that we need to work with from families. Starting with neighbours and street to street discussions. Bring the private sector for messaging – what we need to do, not only as government, is to unite as a country and say this cannot be happening right under our eyes.”
She said a co-ordinated response by the departments of Basic and Higher education, the Department of Health, the Department of Youth, Women and people living with disabilities and the Department of Social Development was needed.