Teenage Pregnancies Hinder Girl Education

Statistics from the Social Welfare Centre indicate that five percent of girls in Buea, Southwest Province, fail to go back to school at the beginning of every academic year due to pregnancy.

The same situation cuts across the country, causing the termination of the educational career of most teenage girls, The Post gathered. The rise in pregnancy among teenage girls has been attributed to youthful excitement, especially during holidays.

In Buea, according to statistics from the Social Welfare Centre, girls in Mile 16, Molyko and Long Street top the chart in cases of teenage pregnancies.The Welfare report notes that girls from boarding schools are mostly the victims.

"When they are on holidays, they are so excited, saying that they have been released from prison (dormitory)," said the mother of a victim.Unfortunately, The Post learnt, most of the boys responsible for these pregnancies decline responsibility.

Talking to the The Post, a boy, whose names we are withholding, said they shy away from these pregnancies for several reasons; fear of the girl's parents, financial difficulties, lack of love for the girl, fear to disrupt their future and inability to father a child at a young age.

The painful part of it all is that these girls are being impregnated by their age mates.

According to a nurse at the Pre-natal Centre, PMI, Buea, the number of students that got pregnant in the past six months reached 93, with most of them from the above-mentioned places.

Besides teenage pregnancies, juvenile activities have led to an increase in HIV/AIDS among youths.The percentage of infected persons in the Southwest stands at 16.1 percent, with girls rated as most infected with 11 percent, while boys represent 5.1 percent.

In every 100 tested persons, there is one male and two females, according to statistics from the Southwest Provincial Technical Group, PTG, for the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Some of the reasons why girls are more infected than boys, according to Violet Ngite, the PTG Programme Assistant, are that girls are the inferior sex and there is a lot of pressure on them; that there is little or no use of condoms during sexual intercourse; girls are more vulnerable and receptive, most girls depend on men for finance, and girls are victims of rape.

In order to curb the rise in teenage pregnancies, the government has launched an annual sensitisation programme - AIDS-free Holidays - through which it educates youths on HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, STIs, and the use of condoms.It also carries out free HIV screening tests and counselling.