Ahead of the International Youth day to be celebrated on Friday, Civil Society Organisations have said the issue of teenage pregnancy has been neglected but has continued to be a bottleneck to the country's development.
In Uganda, the celebrations will be held under the theme "Intergenerational solidarity: The role of the youths in the implementation of the parish development modal."
Addressing journalists in Kampala, Elizabeth Ampairwe, the director of programs at Forum for Women in Democracy(FOWODE) said whereas government is commended for the launch of the Parish Development Model as a driver to transform Ugandans from a peasant to a money economy, the skyrocketing teenage pregnancy rates are likely to undermine the success of the program if left undressed.
"If left unaddressed, teenage pregnancies will worsen the dependence syndrome and exacerbate the already constrained household resources. Whereas last year Uganda launched the renewed strategy on ending child marriage and teenage pregnancy 2021/22 - 2025/2026 which is geared towards reducing teenage pregnancy and despite the presence of a robust legal and policy framework, there is an increasing incidence of teenage pregnancy,"Ampairwe noted.
"Child marriage and teenage pregnancy prevalence remain high. One out of five women in Uganda continue to engage in sexual activity before age 15 whereas 64 percent have sex before age 18 while 34 percent of women aged 25-49 are married before the age of 18 and 7.3 percent before the age of 15."
The Programs Director at FOWODE noted that during the Covid lockdown, an estimated 650,000 teenage pregnancies were recorded, a situation she said was alarming.
"The 2020 national survey on violence revealed that over the last 45 years, more than half of the girls have experienced childhood sexual abuse which may also explain the unchanging level of teenage pregnancy. Child marriage and teenage pregnancy have a huge cost on the government in terms of lost productivity, treatment and management of victims, and case management."
Raymond Ruyoka, the Executive Director of the Youth Advocacy and Development Network Uganda noted that as the country embarks on implementation of Parish Development model, there is growing concern that the government is not investing enough in strengthening laws and policies on ending child marriage and teenage pregnancies.
"We applaud the government for renewing the national strategy to end child marriage and teenage pregnancy. This strategy is envisioned to create a society free of child marriage and teenage pregnancy through strengthening child protection mechanisms and enforcement of relevant legislation including social and cultural norm change. We however consider this effort insufficient to significantly address the situation of teenage pregnancy, for girls and young women to thrive to their full potential through the implementation of Parish Development Model,"Ruyoka said.
Recommendations
The Civil Society Organisations urged government to invest more in livelihood promotion and skilling child mothers so that they acquire skills to start-up enterprises and income-generating activities.
"This can be achieved through integrating economic empowerment in all programs and projects. For instance, we would like to see the youths getting their fair share of the parish development modal which is 30 percent. Child mothers should be given priority because they are a few steps away from abject poverty," Tricia Gloria Nabaye, a research fellow at the Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies urged.
She noted that government ought to invest in the establishment and revamping of adolescent youth-friendly service centres with adequate youth-friendly services and information for girls and boys.
Nabaye noted that this is because it's only a healthy young population that will effectively implement the entire Parish Development Model.
"At the moment most health centres especially in rural areas do not have youths' friendly corners where the youths can get services such as information, contraceptives and counselling which are essential in preventing teenage pregnancies. A report issued by UNFPA in 2020 indicates that the unmet need for family planning services among adolescents in Uganda stands at 30.4%. This is largely because of the unmet need of such services driven mainly by unmatched funding to the ministry of health that should provide these services. "
The CSOs also urged government to through the Ministry of Gender to operationalize the National Strategy on Ending Child Marriage and Teenage pregnancy 2021-2026 and ensure that its implementation country-wide is budgeted for.
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This, they said will require an increase of the allocation of the budget to the children protection docket of the ministry from the current meagre 1% of the national budget to at least 10%
"Government should design and implement inclusive cross-sectorial policies in education, health, agriculture, social development, water, and the environment. Adopting these cross-sectorial policies is also in line with the ongoing NDP III and will meaningfully promote inclusive implementation of Parish Development Model by the youth," said FOWODE's Elizabeth Ampairwe.
"Unless we end child marriage and teenage pregnancy, achieving meaningful participation of young people in implementation of Parish Development Model and SDG number eight of
promoting sustained, inclusive, and sustained economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all will continue to be a myth."
