The increasing number of teenage pregnancies affecting school girls has raised concerns among education stakeholders in Murang’a County.
A report released by a county public health officer, Catharine Macharia, revealed some 3,511 underage girls attended maternity services in 2022 in the region.
The officer explained these girls gave birth at maternity facilities at various hospitals managed by the county government, where data was captured.
Catherine, pointed most of these young mothers are learners at primary and secondary schools where they dropped out after falling pregnant.
Thes victims are forced to dropout from schools prematurely to care for the unplanned babies.
She said some of the girls develop serious health complications because their bodies have not grown fully and matured to handle pregnancies and birthing.
Catherine further observed some of these victims are suffering from malnutrition, poor health and lack of resources to shoulder responsibilities of child rearing.
The officer disclosed that the recorded data from county maternity facilities indicate that some 7 percent of pregnant women who sought for services at local hospitals in recent past were of underage girls.
To mitigate these emerging issues hampering the rights of girls to access education, a non-governmental organization, called Forum for African Women on Education/ Fawe, has established a programme to address the challenges.
The Ngo, Catherine, explained is working with relevant stakeholders to create awareness and confront the early pregnancy trend in the region.
A parent, peter Kariuki attributed the social challenge to moral decadence, diminishing value system and negative peer influence among others.
Kariuki partly blamed current young parents for poor parenting, failure to teach and instill positive values to their children at households.
The parent further noted availability of internet and digital technology has brought new negative influence which is corrupting mind and moral standing of the young people.
Kariuki says ICT and social media facilities are providing huge access of mind corrupting information through smartphone to the children in the households.
These uncensored information influence habits of the children, thus, the increasing sexual engagement and child pregnancies being recorded in the country today.
By Kage Njoroge
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