When she was impregnated at the age of 17 in senior three, the life of Fosee Mushimiyimana from Rwamagana District, took a hard turn. The man who impregnated vanished and she had to go through parenthood at such a young age alone.
"It is very difficult to start motherhood at such a young age. Raising my son without his father’s support is very hard,” she says.
Shadia Icyimpaye, another teen mother, was also impregnated while still in secondary school. Her child is now three years old and the father has never given her any support.
"He refuted all claims that he impregnated me. He married another girl. It psychologically affected me because when the incident happened, no one considered my situation. I was facing stigma from all sides. I immediately dropped out of school. It was hard to have a child at such a young age with no job to help me cater for my kid,” she says.
Youth-led organisations are in drive to fight teen pregancy and child defilement by sensitising students and youth around the country. Photo/Courtesy
These are just a few of the many cases of teen pregnancy that prompted different youth-led organisations, mostly by university students, to launch a recently concluded eight-day campaign, dubbed "Turinde Nyampinga”, that aimed at addressing child defilement and teen pregnancy—highlighting how society can address and eradicate the issues.
The organisations included MEDSA, a medical students association, Community Health Boosters Rwanda that works to boost community health in sexual reproductive and maternal health, HIV, malaria and NCDs, Afro Ark that works to prevent and overcome hardships facing women, youth and children, and Impanuro Girls Initiative that helps girls and women through counselling and training.
Conducted through the African Youth and Adolescents Network (Afri-YAN), the campaign aimed to highlight the role of different stakeholders in eradicating teen pregnancy and child defilement as a nation, and worldwide, by tackling the issues through educating teens and providing helpful services.
"Adolescents and young people need to be equipped with full quality sexual reproductive health information and services. They also need an enabling friendly environment to access information,” said Anaclet Ahishakiye, Executive Director of Community Health Boosters Organization, a youth-led body that was founded by students from the University of Rwanda’s College of Medicine and Health Sciences.
He said that university students should play their role in fighting child defilement and teen pregnancy considering that they have the knowledge and power to reach the community.
He said that social media is the main tool to reach out to adolescents and the youth, while other communication channels can be used to reach out to communities that do not have access to social media.
"Students play a big role in fighting child defilement and teen pregnancy as a part of the population that has knowledge. We have to educate adolescents, especially those uneducated on sexual reproductive health. We have to teach them how to make right decisions and how they can get help in case of violence,” he said.
He said that during the recent campaign, the youth in the organisation have managed to reach over 2,000 social media followers with sexual reproductive health information.
"As the youth, we have to reach out to the community and educate others on sexual reproductive health using different friendly approaches. Education on sexual reproductive health and rights enables adolescents to speak out,” he said.
The recent Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey, sixth of its kind, shows that reproductive health education and teen pregnancy are still an issue among the youth.
The survey published by the Rwanda National Institute of Statistics (NISR) found that the rate of teenage pregnancies and births in Rwanda is at 5.2 per cent, having decreased from 7.3 per cent in 2014 to 2015.
STIs transmission
"Child defilement and teen pregnancy expose adolescents to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy, which have huge physical, psychological and socio-economic impacts on adolescents and young people,” Ahishakiye said.
He said that those who were found to be HIV infected during the campaign, were linked to health centres for counselling and treatment.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), the leading causes of death among girls aged between 15 and 19 worldwide is pregnancy and child birth complications.
The survey conducted on 1,951 teen girls under 18 who were received by Isange One Stop Centres as victims of sexual violence between January 1 2018, and December 2018 found that 8.5 per cent of them were infected with Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STI).
The report prepared by Oxfam Rwanda, Kacyiru Hospital and University of Rwanda School of Public Health indicated that 6 per cent were infected with STIs, 1.6 per cent with HIV and 0.5 per cent with Hepatitis C.
67.9 per cent of the victims are aged between 10 and 17, 19.4 per cent are between 5 and 9, while 13 per cent are under the age of five.
Among the victims, 50.8 per cent were still in primary level. The consequences of sexual violence to under-18 females include unwanted pregnancy, which represents 24.4 per cent. Further, the report reveals that 69 per cent of victims dropped out of school, 6.1 per cent have been involved in prostitution, 5.8 and 4.2 per cent are suffering from depression and anxiety respectively.
Increasing numbers
According to National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA), a total of 3,662 child defilement cases involving 3,667 suspects (3,531 male and 136 female) were received between July 2020 and March 2021.
The number has raised concerns after official statistics revealed that the whole of 2018, a total of 3,152 cases were reported and in 2019, a total of 3,623 were filed.