The ManicaPost
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
THIRTY-THREE children aged between 10 and 14 were impregnated in Manicaland during the first quarter of this year, The Manica Post has learnt.
The shocking statistics come hard on the heels of the Constitutional Court’s ruling that the legal age of consent for sex should be raised from 16 to 18, a judgment welcomed by many as teen pregnancies were forcing hundreds of girls out of school.
Sadly, the paedophiles, especially those staying in areas along the border such as Chimanimani, Chipinge, Honde Valley and Nyanga, were escaping the long arm of the law by skipping into neighbouring Mozambique.
In an interview on the sidelines of last week’s media tour which was organised by the National Aids Council (NAC) to allow journalists to have an insight into the HIV interventions in Manicaland, acting provincial manager for Manicaland, Mr Simbarashe Maquina confirmed that 33 children were impregnated during the first quarter of this year in Manicaland.
Mr Maquina said the NAC provincial quarterly report shows that a total of 3 171 women and girls aged between 15 and 19 years were booked for first antenatal care (ANC).
“The province recorded 33 pregnancies within the 10 to 14 age group. Within this age group, no one was HIV positive. A total of 3 171 women aged 15 to 19 years were booked for first ANC.
“Of those who were booked, 52 already knew their HIV positive status and 54 tested HIV positive,” said Mr Maquina.
The acting NAC provincial manager said the situation had been compounded by a sharp increase in intergenerational sex where older man were targeting young women.
The trend, according to Mr Maquina, places young women and adolescent girls at a higher risk of contracting HIV.
“Young women are at a higher risk of contracting HIV than their male counterparts. They face higher risk of intergenerational sex.
“These young women usually cannot negotiate for safer intimacy when they engage with these older men due to power dynamics,” he said.
Mr Maquina said the challenge has also been worsened by young school girls who are staying at backyard rooms at shops at growth points and business centres in order to be close to their schools.
“Our major problems are areas where young women stay in backyard rooms at growth points like Murambinda in Buhera District and Kopa in Chimanimani while attending school.
“The low cost boarding facilities that are being set up are expected to help ease the challenge, even though one of their initial aims was to address the issue of long distances between school and homes,” said Mr Maquina.
Through funding from Global Fund, with UNDP, Plan and NAC as implementing partners, low cost boarding schools have since been established at Mhakwe Secondary School and Ndima High School in Chimanimani District.
Speaking during the media tour, District Aids Coordinator for Chimanimani, Mrs Priscila MacIsaac said men who impregnate young girls normally skip the border to evade prosecution.
“We have had cases of child pregnancies in Chimanimani District and the figures have been very worrisome,” she said.
Mr Masimba Machisa, a social development officer in the Social Welfare Department under the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare echoed the same sentiments.
“The number of young children being impregnated is too much. Having 33 children under the age of 14 being impregnated in the province alone in three months is not only shocking, but a major cause for concern.
“The one who bears a child at that age is highly likely to face challenges in parenting that child and that means the offspring will also be most likely subjected to the same conditions as their mother.
“It becomes a cycle. We are trying our best to combat this trend and we really hope that with all the interventions that we are instituting, we will be able to reach the desired goal,” said Mr Machisa.
According to data availed through the World Health Organisation, early pregnancies among adolescents have major health consequences for adolescent mothers and their babies.
Pregnancy and childbirth complications are the leading causes of death among girls aged 15 to 19 years globally.
In a ruling recently handed down by the Constitutional Court, provisions in the Criminal Law that set the age of consent for sex at 16 were struck down.
Following the court’s decision, the Ministry of Justice and Parliamentary Affairs has 12 months to enact a law that protects all children from sexual exploitation in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.
