How Many Babies Are Born Due to Rape Every Year Teenagers
The issue of child rape, often disguised equally teenage pregnancy, is one of the most telling signs of why we should call ourselves a failed society. The Gauteng health department published a report last calendar month that more than than 23 000 girls between the ages of 10 and xix were impregnated between April 2020 and March 2021. LoveLife has since been metabolising the issues emerging from talk radio and social media. Nosotros observe that South Africans are not particularly outraged about the impregnation of children. We are not nearly angry plenty about this outcome.
How did we go here? How did we get to a place where 10-twelvemonth-olds are categorised every bit teenagers, and we are okay with that? How did we get to a place where are told that more than than 900 children between the ages of x and fourteen were impregnated and we don't need justice, every bit the constabulary is unambiguous about statutory rape? How did we get to a place where accountability seems to be the concluding thing we need from those responsible for following through to ensure children are protected, or, at least, once information technology is known that they are in damage'southward mode, are removed from those environments?
Perhaps we must first acknowledge that although the reported numbers may exist shocking, the problem of teenage pregnancy is not new. The annual national statistics have consistently shown that children every bit young as nine are giving nascency in state facilities. And that is where the contend ends, until the next twelvemonth's report.
But these are not but numbers, but real people with lives that are left devastated with no (known) consequences for the perpetrators.
Second, we must acknowledge that this problem persists because, as adults, we are failing the children terribly. At which signal practice we as adult South Africans stand up and say enough is enough! No more! When practise we stop waiting for someone else, for the government, for some other department to be the 1 that acts?
Third, we must acknowledge that if the adults in our society are happy just to tweet their outrage and non demand justice for children, we are not just derelict but killing the souls of our children and stunting their future.
Finally, and most chiefly, we must acknowledge that if we fail to reduce poverty and economic inequality in our country, we will go along to deepen the problem as studies have shown the causal links between the poverty and inequality and teenage pregnancy.
Don't misdiagnose the problem
Where do we beginning to address this teenage pregnancy claiming? While there are no silver bullets to solve complex problems such as teenage pregnancy, we must never make the mistake of misdiagnosing the pervasive problems that characterise the problem. With more than xx years' experience of running programmes for young people betwixt the ages of x and 24, LoveLife has seen how effective multisectoral approaches can be.
The get-go place to kickoff is to fix our broken system past continuously holding the roleplayers in the youth ecosystem answerable. Plainly, at that place is no lack of legislative instruments in our country to either protect children or create environments designed to prevent teenage pregnancy, but the pervasive issue is that of systemic unwillingness to human action. This unwillingness keeps breaking our values while keeping the states in the cruel cycle.
The starting point of fixing the system is the abode. Sexual abuse of children often happens in their homes and communities past perpetrators who are well known to them. The constabulary should make it an offence for any adult who is enlightened of the sexual abuse not to report it to the authorities. Parents and guardians who shield the perpetrators of sexual assail on girl children in the proper noun of alleviating poverty must be held accountable for their complicity.
Don't normalise the prostitution of girls
While it is well known fact that the prevalence of pregnancies among adolescent girls living in adverse social atmospheric condition and environmental influence is typically driven by poverty, a lack of education and employment opportunities, we should never normalise the prostitution of girl children. If girl children are to accept whatever futurity to talk of, we must rise to demand justice and agree each role actor accountable.
The continued absence of a learner from school ways that the schoolhouse is one of the first to know if a child is pregnant. Educators in the section of pedagogy who fail to report a instance with SAPS after reporting to the department of social development for social workers to get involved should be charged. This is the starting point of protecting the child. While at information technology, the department of basic education must enforce the recently amended Employment of Educators Act, which empowers the department to dismiss and never again employ any educator institute guilty of sexual misconduct with a learner.
Section of health personnel who become aware of pregnant girl children under 12 must report the matter to the police equally a case of statutory rape. So the police must investigate and the National Prosecuting Authority must prosecute the perpetrators and tape them in the National Register of Sex Offenders.
While ceremonious society players are a critical collaborator in the ecosystem to protect the daughter child, nosotros must force the hand of the government in cases with tedious motion. We must apply our stakeholder date platforms, and in cases where there seems to be deliberate dragging of anxiety, we may have to litigate. Information technology is on the principle of working together in the best interest of the girl child.
As we commemorate the International Day of the Daughter Child on Tuesday 11 October, we all have a collective responsibility to amplify the voices and rights of girls. Most chiefly, we accept to demand accountability from all actors whose part is to ensure girls are protected through ensuring their rights are observed.
The South Africa we want is one where teenage pregnancy becomes the least of our issues, where government and business does more than than enough to reduce poverty and inequality past creating an enabling environment for creating sustainable businesses and jobs.
The prevalence of child and teenage pregnancy can get a memory, a painful role of our history, when families and gild become custodians of children and work with ceremonious society and government in ensuring the safety and wellbeing of girls, by being their protectors and putting the futurity of these children ahead of the needs of the family.
Source: https://mg.co.za/opinion/2021-10-11-teenage-pregnancy-which-is-often-child-rape-should-enrage-us/
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