The Ministry of Health and Child Care has been urged to present a strategy to tackle teenage pregnancies after it was revealed that over 700 girls between 10 and 14 years old gave birth in 2022.
This was highlighted in the Vital Statistics Report released by the Zimbabwe Statistical Agency (Zimstat). MDC legislator Ruth Labode said that this report underscores the urgent need to address the issue of teenage pregnancies. Said Labode:
Disaggregated data on the Distribution of Births by Age of Mother released during the launch of the Zimstat Vital Statistics Report shows that 700 girls aged 10 to 14 gave birth in 2022.
What does this say about this country? Could the Minister of Health and Child Care bring a Ministerial Statement and tell us what strategy they have to curb this scourge of teenage pregnancies. A ten-year-old is not a teenager but a baby.
Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Monica Mutsvangwa, agreed with Labode that the situation is very sad and needs to be addressed. She said that an inter-ministerial strategy will be implemented to tackle the issue of teenage pregnancies. The Ministry of Health is working on various strategies, which will be presented to Parliament. She added:
Members asked for a Ministerial Statement which will articulate step by step of what they are doing. To have 700 young girls aged 10 to 14 getting pregnant is very sad.
This is something which we need to understand from the Home Affairs Ministry to see how many people have been jailed or castrated if they need to be.
A ten-year-old is a baby and for any person in his right sense to actually take her as a woman, I think there is an element of madness which needs to be dealt with; an element of cruelty or animal behaviour which needs to be dealt with.