Of the 1,764 babies born in South Africa on 1 January 2022, 65 were to teenage mothers. The youngest of these, from the Eastern Cape, was only 13 years old. This was according to Health Minister Joe Phaahla in a statement in January welcoming babies born on New Year’s Day.
Teenage pregnancy in South Africa is a crisis, not only because children are having children, but also because it has adverse health, social, and economic effects on young girls. The majority of them are forced to drop out of school, or fall behind with their school work, as a result of early pregnancy and motherhood. They can then become trapped in a cycle of poverty, leaving them dependent on public assistance, suffering the stigma of being teenage mothers, or forced into early marriages.
While teenage pregnancies are a problem across low-, middle- and high-income countries, they are most likely to occur in marginalised communities. This is often due to poverty, sexual violence, and/or lack of education.
AN AFRICA-WIDE ISSUE
African countries lead the world in teen pregnancies, with Niger on the top of the list with 177 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19. Mali follows with 162, Chad (152), Angola (143), Mozambique (142), Malawi (131), Guinea (130), and Cote d’Ivoire (113),
