Our Viewpoint | uMgungundlovu’s child pregnancy crisis

The latest figures on child pregnancies in uMgungundlovu should not be reported as statistics alone. They are crime statistics. When a girl between the ages of 10 and 14 falls pregnant, that is not just teenage experimentation; in most cases, it is statutory rape.

A child of 10 to 13 is neither physically nor emotionally equipped to carry a pregnancy to term, let alone shoulder the lifelong responsibility of raising another human being. These children are children themselves. For many, pregnancy can feel like a life sentence handed down before they have even begun to live.

According to Lifeline’s Sinikiwe Biyela, poverty is one of the key drivers of this injustice. In up to 80% of cases, the father is reportedly over 30 years old. Some girls have disclosed that older men provide basic food, such as fried chips or chicken, in exchange for sexual relationships.

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The moral depravity of exploiting the poverty and innocence of a girl by trading a child’s body for a meal cannot be softened by euphemisms. According to Biyela, many girls do not fully understand what has happened to them until they receive counselling, often only once they are already pregnant. Lifeline is only seeing and basing its statistics on the cases that reach its doors.

The real scale of the crisis is likely far worse. We lament the “teenage pregnancy crisis”, but behind every underage pregnancy lie two lives altered, in many cases by abuse. Statutory rape cannot continue to be normalised as a social ill we shake our heads at.

Those who exploit children’s hunger, innocence and vulnerability must face swift and severe legal consequences. Anything less signals tolerance. Urgent, proactive intervention is also needed: mobile health clinics and accessible reproductive health services in rural areas, which Biyela said are lacking, as well as sustained sex education campaigns teaching young girls about statutory rape and their right to bodily autonomy. A proactive response is the only acceptable reaction.

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