Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | As Uganda gears up to join the rest of the world in celebrating International Youth Day on August 12th, 2024, data from the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) 2016 indicates that 43% of women in Uganda aged 25-49 years were married before the age of 18, a rate that is considered one of the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In rural areas of Uganda, the teenage pregnancy rate is even higher with 27% of girls, aged 15-19 years having begun childbearing (UNFPA 2020). Leaders have attributed the high teenage pregnancies and early marriages to the failure of the laws and policies in place.
Leaders have attributed the worrying to statistics to the failure of laws and policies in addressing early marriages and teenage pregnancies.
“Many children from poor families will either get into marriage or get pregnant at a younger age and even parents will look the other way. They won’t help the children. The level of vulnerability is even expressed by Parents,” said Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, the Kira Municipality MP during today’s Capital FM’s Capital Gang program.
He pointed out weak laws and enforcement on combatting teenage pregnancies and early marriages.
According to the World Bank’s 2017 report, teenage pregnancy contributes to 20 percent of the infant death and 28 percent of maternal deaths. The report also indicates that substantial economic benefits would result from reductions in under-five mortality and stunting rates, estimated together to reach US $275 million by 2030.
The Sheema Municipality MP (NRM) Dickson Kateshumbwa cited cultural beliefs in which parents look at girl children as a source of wealth and as such, marry them off at a young age to get dowry.
“Poverty creates vulnerability, in the time of hard economic situations`, it’s always the women and youth that are vulnerable; we saw it during the COVID-19 situation. The issue of peer pressure should also be addressed,” he said.
The Per capita expenditure for minor health care of a child per episode is estimated at UGX 29,645 (US$8). Families of all teenage mothers in 2020 spent UGX 1.28 trillion (US$290 million) on SRH services and the estimated health facility expenditure on teenage mothers was UGX 246.9 billion (US$70 million). Collectively, this is equivalent to 43 percent of the Ministry of Health 2019/20 Budget
The Vice Chairperson of Makerere University School of Public Health Regulatory Ethics Committee Dr Dinah Amongin called for the increased government’s efforts in keeping girl children in school as a measure to address teenage pregnancies and early marriages.
She said high teenage pregnancies and early marriages, and this has affected the potential of young people.
“Teenage pregnancies will need a multisectoral approach, starting with the family. Are the parents empowered to speak to these children? COVID-19 taught us a lesson that children are safer in schools,” she stated.
“What are we doing to keep these children in school? When parents are stuck, they only prioritise the education of boys leaving out girls. We need to see how to retain these girls in school.”
In July this year, Sierra Leone’s parliament enacted the Prohibition of Child Marriage Bill 2024 makes marriage for anyone under 18 a criminal offense and seeks to protect girls from a harmful practice that has long violated their rights and hindered their development.
A report by UNFPA in 2020 showed that although progress has been made to end child marriage, the practice still affects nearly half of all girl-children in Uganda, with 43% of women 25-49 years report having married by 18 years.
Further, there is a high prevalence of defilement, disproportionately inflicted upon girls. According to the Uganda police report 2022, a total of 12,780 victims were defiled in 2022, of whom, 12,470 were Female Juveniles and 310 were Male Juveniles.
Ofwono Opondo, the government spokesperson and Executive Director of the Uganda Media Center said; “In some communities, the offender’s parents will opt to settle the matters amicably, the girl’s family will ask for a goat or a cow, and if the boy’s parents have agreed to pay them, the Police will back off.”