CASES of teen pregnancies and early marriages have significantly gone down in Guruve district in Mashonaland Central province in the past three years, following the intensive awareness campaigns by local non-governmental organisation working in the district.
BY OUR CORRESPONDENT
Villagers and community leaders who spoke to Standardcommunity at an assessment meeting held at St Francis St Clare Mission in Guruve recently, concurred that the number of children falling victim to early marriage and teen pregnancy had gone down.
Young For Real Champions (YFRC) Guruve coordinator, Kizito Mpunga said the number of girls dropping out of school due to pregnancy or early marriage had gone down. “We used to get as many as 16 girls dropping out of school [at St Francis St Clare Mission] every year but this number has been going down,” said Mpunga.
The organisation is one of the NGOs that are spearheading campaigns against early marriages and teen pregnancies in the district.
Mpunga said before the programme started in 2010, between 1 500 and 1 600 schoolchildren in the district either fell pregnant or got married.
The majority were under 16 years of age.
Women Action Group (WAG) programme officer, Gamuchirai Mandangu-Bakasa said: “Some of the girls were made pregnant by married men before they reached the age of 16.”
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Early marriages in the district have been attributed to the high number of child-headed families, schoolchildren living on their own, as well as poverty.
Some poor parents sell-off their teen daughters to well-off suitors.
Local village head Ison Nhemachani also attributed the decrease in the number of teen pregnancies to the YFRC programme.
He said the changing social and economic factors had impacted negatively on the upbringing of children.
“Many parents are opposed to the idea of community ownership, where parents other than themselves can monitor their children. On the other hand, the issue of technology has left parents in mid-point, as they cannot supervise what the children are downloading on their phones,” said Nhemachani.
The aim of the YFCR programme was to build a dialogue with everyone in the community, and discouraging parents from sanctioning early marriages while teaching teens to abstain from early sex.
“Community leadership should keep the girl child in school,” said Mandangu-Bakasa.
Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education district arts and cultural officer, Munyaradzi Chawadya said the programme helped instil good moral values in schoolchildren.
