As we observe the annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, the campaign has not shown any significant impact to reduce the scourge of teenage pregnancies in South Africa, mainly as a result of statutory rape.
‘16 Days of Activism comes around every year, and we could ask, is this awareness raising campaign really useful and what impacts does it have in our communities? Once the 16 days are over, we all forget about the problem until this time next year when the next campaign begins, leaving thousands of girls as young as primary school age without the opportunity to learn how to read or write due to pregnancy from rape,” says Mara Glennie, CEO and founder of the TEARS Foundation.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga recently declared adolescent pregnancy in South Africa as a national crisis when she revealed that an alarming 90 037 girls aged 10 to 19 gave birth in the period March 2021 to April 2022, across all provinces. She added that during the same period, a further 11 287 girls in the same age bracket, fell pregnant.
The Covid-19 pandemic amplified existing societal challenges, with limited access to clinics and abortion services, as well as long-running and ongoing shortages of birth control medication at state healthcare facilities highlighted as possible reasons behind the surge. While all learners should have access to male and female condoms and information on their use, efforts are severely hampered by a shortage of government supplied condoms in communities and at schools.
“While the spread of HIV/AIDS and teenage pregnancy have always been causes for concern in South Africa, the past few years have seen a rapid and alarming increase in teenage pregnancy statistics. Apart from not being able to financially support their infants, baby mortality rates are also typically higher, due to both insufficient medical assistance and increased risks associated with these younger women bearing children,” says Glennie. “When teenage girls become pregnant, it is overwhelmingly as a result of sexual abuse by an adult, including schoolteachers. Poverty puts girls at a greater risk, as it forces them into transactional relationships with older men who become their sugar daddies, and unfortunately, many babies born from unintended pregnancies are abandoned,” Glennie says.
Young girls who choose to abandon their babies, leaving them in dustbins, gutters or dumps, often find themselves in desperate situations, with no support and limited options. In a system that is already failing our youth, many have been abandoned themselves by the father of their child, and by their families, on discovery of their pregnancy. Pregnancy brings a rapid shift in their social status in their family and their community – they move from someone who is loved and cherished, to someone who is isolated and shunned. In most cases, the young girls are completely unprepared for pregnancy, no one had told them about sex, conception, birth control or pregnancy.
In research conducted by the National Adoption Coalition South Africa (NACSA), it was found that baby abandonment occurs because adoption and abortion are frowned upon in certain cultures and social workers and nurses are mostly against adoption, portraying the abandoning mother as irresponsible and immoral young women. NACSA also found that many social workers and nurses fear that if they assisted a young girl in placing a child up for adoption, they may also suffer some form of punishment from their ancestors.
Abandoning an infant in such a way that the baby is likely to die, is against the law in South Africa, yet perpetrators are rarely prosecuted for this crime and quantifying the number of infants who die as a result of abandonment proves challenging. “To effectively combat the abandonment of babies as a result of teenage pregnancies, we need to better understand the scale of the issue as well as the social context that created this situation. As far back as 2010, Child Welfare SA estimated that more than 3500 babies were abandoned unsafely in SA in that period. These are from cases that were reported in the news; the majority of cases go unreported and the 3,500 figure has been quoted widely about abandonment for the past couple of years. There are no current statistics detailing the number of children who are abandoned on an annual basis and most child protection organisations believe that the numbers have increased significantly over the past twelve years,” Glennie states.
Relevant data collection is key to implementing successful prevention measures and providing young mothers and rape survivors with the right levels of support. And yet the collection of crucial gender sensitive data remains a low priority for government. “The answer lies in the statistics and in the absence of government data, no one knows how big the problem actually is; the absence of evidence makes the problem almost invisible. Our experience working with victims of abuse suggests that social services are failing to help vulnerable teenage mothers in South Africa. Intervening is critical at all levels including reproductive services as well as child protection services,” says Glennie.
To tackle this problem, multi-sectoral strategies are needed. Services for girls experiencing violence can mean the difference between life and death. This means that shelters, baby walls, hotlines, and counselling need to be available for those in need. “Yet, organisations that empower women, support survivors and promote actions and policies designed to reduce and prevent gender-based violence with early intervention and care, are increasingly being defunded, side lined and silenced. We need to shine a light on the need for funding, essential services and data that will shape better informed responses. Increasing long-term funding to support women’s support organisations is key to finding effective and sustainable solutions to prevent and respond to violence against women,” Glennie says.
It’s more crucial than ever that we speak up and out. For this reason, TEARS Foundation recently launched Speak Up, a digitally driven, age-appropriate, and free education platform that’s available 24/7 to educate adolescents (aged between 13 and 26 years), across all official languages, about teenage pregnancy, the spread of HIV/AIDS and the occurrence of rape and sexual abuse.
“The positive impact that empowered, informed teenage girls can have on their communities is unparalleled, and largely untapped,” says Glennie. “With Speak Up, we are capitalising on the value of digital technology and how it can assist in combating GBV. Our aim with Speak Up is to educate South African adolescents about abstinence and values, and the consequences of teen sex and unprotected sex. But most importantly, we explain that saying “no” and speaking up when you are being violated, is a basic human right. When it comes to sexual consent, there are no blurred lines.”
TEARS Foundation was recently recognised for establishing Speak Up as a successful innovation concept at the annual tt100 Business Innovation Awards ceremony.
