Arrest and prosecute defilers to address teenage pregnancies

As a country, are we really interested in curbing teenage pregnancies? if yes, we must seriously tackle one of the leading root causes-defilement.

On September 19, 2024, the Monitor published a news piece about the detention of a 15-year-old girl from Budondo Ward in Jinja City for procuring an abortion of a 7-months pregnancy with twins. The story is messy! This teenage girl was encouraged by a friend to have an abortion, because apparently giving birth at her age would lead to death. The friend allegedly gave her a concoction which led to still birth, she bled severely and was rushed to a nearby health facility, but afterward, the girl was arrested.

Her friend, and other two individuals who assisted her with the abortion by the time of the story were at large, and police was hunting for them.

However, the missing piece of information in this story was the whereabouts of the man who impregnated this girl. The writer doesn’t mention anything about the alleged perpetrator, whether he was arrested or not, or if the police was looking for him at all.

One of the contributing factors of high cases of teenage pregnancies in Uganda is defilement, and in most cases, these culprits go scot-free. As a country, it is like we have normalized defilement/rape.

I have worked with young people across the country in, and out of school, and from the dialogues we have held to discuss challenges they are grappling with, the problem of teenage pregnancies comes out as number one. Most teenage girls who are victims of this vice tell me the men who impregnated them are at large, and a few who are arrested, they pay some little money to the girls ‘parents/guardians and are released.

A 2021 UNFPA report shows that a total of 290,219 teenage pregnancies were recorded from January to September 2021, translating to over 32,000 monthly. For instance, in Kamuli (6,535), Mayuge (6,205 teenage pregnancies), Mukono (5,535) and Luweero (4,545). Lango: (Oyam 6,449 and Lira 4,697), (Wakiso 10,439 and Rakai, 2711). (Arua 4,705 and Yumbe 3,973), Kasese (7,319) and Kyenjojo (4,341).

According to the Ugandan Penal Code Act, defilement is a criminal offence, unlawful, and sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of eighteen years” makes the offense punishable by death (para. 129(1)).

The latest police crime report revealed that a total of 13,144 juveniles were defiled in 2023, of whom 388 were defiled by persons living with HIV/AIDS. Out of the total victims, 12,818 were females while 326 were males.

It is not only their future snatched away, but many have lost their lives. Teenage pregnancy is a top cause of death among young girls in Uganda (UNICEF 2019). The country's Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) stood at 336 deaths per 100,000 live births and regarding maternal mortality rates, 17.2 per cent of the deaths were among those aged 15-19 (UNFPA 2021).

Early this year, Dr. Richard Mugahi, the Commissioner in charge of Reproductive and Infant health, Ministry of Health revealed that 18% of all the mothers that die in Uganda are teenagers and this is due to pregnancy related complications such as sepsis due to Abortion.

I won’t go to the extreme of saying such men should be castrated as Dr. Miria Matembe once said. But as a country, especially our leaders and relevant stakeholders such as the police, the judiciary, can you seriously investigate, arrest, and prosecute every man found guilty of defiling teenage girls and ensure they fully serve their prison terms.

When men commit this hideous crime, and go unpunished, the more cases of defilement we shall hear or see, and this obviously means the problem of teenage pregnancy will persist.

We are failing our teenage girls. The more teenage mothers we have, it presents a cocktail of short and long term negative trickle-down effects such as school dropout, contracting HIV, unemployment and their dreams are shuttered especially those who don’t get the second chance of returning back to school. Yes, government put a directive allowing pregnant girls to sit for their final exams, as well as making provisions for those breastfeeding, and allowing those who have given birth to return back to school.

However, we must focus more on protecting and preventing more adolescent girls from becoming pregnant. This means tackling head on the root causes of the problem, particularly defilement.

Police and the judiciary, seriously investigate, arrest, and detain men found guilt of impregnating teenage girls, this will go along way in reducing the rate of the crime(defilement) and many more girls will be spared, and cases of teenage pregnancies will drastically reduce.

Vivian Agaba, [email protected]