When she was 15 years old, Julienne Muhawenimana found out that she was pregnant. As a minor, she didn’t know what to do. She was shocked and scared. She didn’t know how to tell her 17-year-old boyfriend, and when she finally gathered the courage to do so, she regretted it instantly. As she’d feared, he wanted nothing to do with the child, and she was completely alone. Currently living in Nyundo Sector, Rubavu District, 18-year-old Muhawenimana, now a street vendor, feels compelled to tell her story so that other girls draw a lesson and do not make the same mistake she did. Muhawenimana was born in 2000 in Rubavu. Orphaned at a young age, she went to live with an aunt. When she found out she was pregnant, Muhawenimana confided in a neighbour who, despite her own struggles, looks after orphans. The neighbour secretly helped her out during the early stages of the pregnancy. When her aunt found out, she was sent away from home. Alone and frightened, Muhawenimana sought the neighbour’s assistance again, who got her a small room, and even took her to hospital when it was time to have the baby. “Many girls are having sex at an early age; they do it out of love and it is hard to advise them to stop as they do not listen. Our teachers used to forbid us from engaging in such behaviour and we took it for granted. You only get to value that advice after trouble strikes. Now, I regret not listening to them. Life has become tough and my future is uncertain,” she says. Muhawenimana says that her former classmates will soon get their A Level credentials, while she struggles with life and raising her baby. However, Muhawenimana says that this experience has made her wiser, and she advises all girls to abstain from sex until they are old enough and ready, that is, when they’re married. Muhawenimana says that she has never received support of any kind from the boy who sired the child; he is still in school and his parents can’t afford to help. She started out with Rwf10, 000 that the neighbour who took care of her gave her, and used it to buy tomatoes to sell on the street. With time, she made a little money and rented a small place of her own where she now stays with her baby. “Now, I strive to get what I need in life, the boy who impregnated me is still in school, he cannot even afford soap of Rwf100. My life is hard as I have to feed my baby and myself without any support,” she says. Reaching out to teens “It is not bad to see a teen couple in love, but girls should take into account that when it comes to sexual intercourse, we are the ones who suffer with the consequences most. Before I got pregnant, I thought that to look cool around my peers, I had to have a boyfriend, which was wrong. That conception led to my current situation. When I see girls behaving the way I used to, I feel sad because I’m afraid of the consequences,” she says. She says that some boys are tricky and that they ‘soften’ girls by giving them small gifts. The girls warm up to the boys, and one thing leads to another. In the end, the girl ends up shouldering the burden while the boy goes on with his life as if nothing happened. “Many teens do not have money, so these boys take advantage of that and lure the girls with cheap gifts and promises of endless love. But once the girl gets pregnant, and she tells him, many of them respond with, ‘I’m not the only one who can impregnate’,” she says. Muhawenimana says that she doesn’t see herself going back to school in the future as she has to raise her child and, with no family members to help her, she feels her education has come to an abrupt end. Moise Munyamariza, the in-charge of social work at Hope and Homes for Children, a non-government organisation helping the homeless and orphans, says like Muhawenimana, many girls in Rubavu District have been forced to drop out of school because of teen pregnancy but efforts to put an end to it are ongoing. Marie Grace Uwampayizina, Rubavu District’s vice-mayor and in-charge of social affairs, says the district has many strategies in place to curb teen pregnancy, such as evening talks like Akagoroba k’ababyeyi (parents’ forum). Statistics from Rubavu show that in 2017 alone, 189 girls faced early pregnancy. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
