Teenage pregnancy, KZN leads

A REPORT released by District Health Barometer earlier this month, has indicated that 9.3% of all babies delivered in KZN’s health facilities are to teenage mothers.
This figure is higher than both the national average of 7.8% and the national target of 6.8%.
KZN has the third highest number of teen pregnancies in the country and the report places nine of our province’s districts in the top 20 with the most teen pregnancies in the country.
Furthermore, uMkhanyakude District leads KZN’s teen pregnancy figures with an astounding 11.3%. This means that, of all the babies born in uMkhanyakude, 11.3% are to teenage mothers.
“Teenage pregnancies have a huge impact on the education, health and social circumstances of both teenage girls and their children. It entrenches these young women and their children into the poverty trap from which they seldom recover,” Dr Rishigen Viranna, DA KZN Spokesperson on Social Development, said.
According to the report, reasons for this situation include the failure or lack of education through school health programmes, and poverty.
Viranna says the KZN Department of Social Development’s Operation Sukhuma Sakhe, the aim of which was to reduce the prevalence of teen pregnancies, is deemed an ‘outright failure’ in light of this report.Viranna, together with DA MPLs Dr Imran Keeka, KZN Spokesperson on Health, and Mbali Ntuli, KZN Spokesperson on Education, have taken the proactive step of calling for this matter to be dealt with as a joint portfolio issue.
They have requested a combined meeting of the education, health and social development portfolio committees at which a joint provincial position on this problem, which spans all three portfolios, must be formulated.
– Zululand Observer