Windhoek — Members of Parliament tried to find reasons on Wednesday why more and more young women dump their babies shortly after birth.

Several babies were abandoned in recent weeks, with three incidents at the coast.

One newborn infant was buried alive under the desert sand outside Walvis Bay, but was rescued by a Police officer after a tip-off from the public.

Elma Dienda of the Congress of Democrats (CoD) opposition party tabled a motion in the National Assembly requesting the House to allow research into the social and psychological reasons causing young girls to abandon their newborn children.

"We have to find out what is the state of mind of these girls. What drove them to such a decision and what are their backgrounds?" Dienda said. "We need to understand the mind of these girls and women; we must also ask what went wrong in our society."

She claimed that early pregnancies happened in all sectors of society, rich and poor. Poverty, unemployment and the lack of responsibility of the men who impregnated the girls and young women could not be the only reasons for such acts, Dienda stressed.

"The fear of shame, stigma and finger-pointing by society when a girl gets pregnant at an early age might be strong reasons to lead young mothers to drown and bury their babies."

The CoD politician told the House that she herself became pregnant at the age of 17 and her boyfriend left her when he found out she was pregnant.

"One feels terribly lonely in such a situation and definitely needs support from others, it cannot be handled alone."

Dienda proposed that parents should support their daughters and not reject them. "Life goes on, forgive and forget.

Comfort your daughters in that situation and don't reject them," she urged. She said orphaned girls having to look after siblings often found themselves in a situation where older men engaged in a relationship with them in exchange for food and/or money to help them to cope with their daily lives.

Should they get pregnant from such a "relationship", these men disappeared.

According to Dienda, HIV-AIDS caused even more anxiety to young pregnant mothers. "They have to worry if they themselves are infected and transmit the HI virus to their unborn babies, who would die anyway at a young age, should they get infected from their mothers," she argued.

Abortion was not an option, Dienda feels. She argued that places of safety should be set up for pregnant girls kicked out of their homes by parents. Clinics and hospitals where the girls gave birth should have follow-up services for the young mothers. Fellow CoD MP Nora Schimming-Chase was the first speaker when the debate opened. She said abandoning babies to die - infanticide - was "murder of the most vicious form." Swapo backbencher Dr Moses Amweelo said in his culture girls used to be "set on fire", but this practice could not be applied in today's times.

Prime Minister Nahas Angula noted that a teenager getting pregnant was in a very "lonely situation" and that such babies could be adopted. Justice Minister and Attorney General Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana entertained the House with old traditions and customs, which did not allow girls to be come pregnant before marriage.

"Today we however don't know what our children are doing, where they go, which places they visit and who their friends are. We don't have control of our children nowadays," she said. The debate continues on Tuesday.