The issue of teenage pregnancy has been forgotten and no one is talking about it. In the past teenage pregnancies was considered a taboo but today in our generation it’s just a normal habit. And the more these cases are happening the more the community is pushing these young girls away.
The government on it’s side is really trying to reduce these numbers of teenage pregnancies. Statistics show that from 2018-2019: data showed that in 2019, 82 births per 1000 births were observed with a drop in total number of cases from 2018 to 2019 ( from over 415000 to approximately 378000 for ages 15 – 19). 2020 to 2022 the rate declined from 18 percent in 2014 to 15 percent in 2022. 2023 to 2025 the rate has remained at about 14.9 percent to 15.3 percent.
Teenage pregnancies among young girls in Kenya are affected by a wide range of individual, community and social factors that pose major challenges to the country’s economic development ( Moturi,2016). The significant associates of adolescent pregnancy are: age at first sex, household wealth, family structure, exposure to media, community poverty level and the use of contraceptive. ( Birhanu et al., 2019 ; Wado et al., 2019; Worku et al., 2021).
To expound more on poverty, most of the girls are really suffering because they are lacking support at their homes. You find that most girls who come from poor families can’t meet their own needs at a personal level. Their own parents have to provide food, clothes ,school fees and other essential needs for them.
As the burden of parenting becomes heavy, girls opt to relationships that end up destroying their lives and their bright promising futures completely. They find boyfriends who will only accept to help them with their special unique needs with the exchange of their bodies. These young girls get lied to by their boyfriends on how they are really loved. And the human being in us will surely fall for those lies. By the time these girls come back to their senses, they find out that they have already messed up with their lives.
Another major issue causing teenage pregnancies is lack of exposure. Lack of exposure deprives girls of the knowledge, resources and alternative paths needed to make informed life choices. Lack of exposure manifests in several ways: Limited awareness – many girls lack basic knowledge of their own reproductive systems or how pregnancy occurs often realising they are pregnant only after several months. Contraceptive myths – without exposure to accurate information girls often rely on harmful rumours such as the idea that contraceptives cause permanent infertility leading them to avoid protective measures. Digital protective factor – research shows that girls with regular access to the internet or mass media have significantly odds of becoming pregnant because they are exposed to health information and youth-friendly services.
As a community, people around them and friends to these girls let’s not push them away because they got pregnant at their younger ages. After all most them didn’t really want to get pregnant at those young ages. Pushing them away will only affect their mental health and wellbeing. Let’s all embrace them and motivate them that they can rise after falling. Let’s avoid this attitude of accusing and judging them without knowing their stories.
Lastly if you have that ability to help a girl who is struggling with life, please help her so that she won’t see an opportunity of a cunning boyfriend who is there to waste her life. Let’s all come together help and educate these young girls for a better tomorrow.