SA teen pregnancy crisis: 90 000 pregnancies recorded in 2024
Teenage pregnancies 'robbing girls of their future'
Steve Letsike, Deputy Minister in the Presidency responsible for Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities, warns that these numbers poses a threat to South Africans.
Letsike said the scourge of teenage pregnancy is not only a health concern but a threat to the nation's social and moral fibre and future prosperity.
'Teenage pregnancy is robbing too many of our girls of their childhood and their future, and it will take all of us working together to turn the tide,' Letsike said at a stakeholder engagement in Pretoria recently aimed at addressing the persistent ongoing scourge of teenage pregnancy.
Not only a statistic but also a crime
He said 2 328 girls younger between 10 and 14-years-old recorded pregnancies last year.
'To call this alarming would be an understatement. These are children, some barely in their teens, some not even teenagers, now forced into motherhood,' Letsike said.
Letsike said a child as young as 10 becoming pregnant was not just a statistic but evidence of a profound societal failure and a horrific crime because a girl that young cannot legally give consent.
'This crisis threatens the very foundation of our social and economic development as teenage pregnancy poses a serious threat to the health, rights, education and socio-economic well-being of girls.
'When a young girl becomes a mother, her chances of finishing school plummet, her job prospects diminish, and she often becomes trapped in a cycle of poverty.
'In other words, today's teen pregnancy is tomorrow's poverty and inequality. We must recognise this as not only a public health issue but a social justice emergency,' the deputy minister said.
Letsike said the high incidence of adolescent pregnancy in the country was interlinked with other scourges of HIV and other STI infection rates, child sexual abuse, statutory rape, gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF), poverty, educational exclusion, substance abuse and even toxic elements of popular culture.
'To craft effective solutions, we must honestly confront how and why so many young girls are getting pregnant,' Letsike said.
Urgent response needed
Deputy Minister in the Presidency Nonceba Mhlauli said teenage pregnancy in South Africa has reached deeply concerning levels.
'These are not just numbers; they are a stark reflection of our socio-economic challenges and a call to action. Teenage pregnancy is more than a health crisis,' she said.
Mhlauli said the response to teenage pregnancy must be urgent, coordinated and compassionate.
'Government cannot do this work alone. We need the support of all pillars of society, parents, faith leaders, educators, civil society, the media and the private sector,' she said.
Pregnancies indicate inability to protect girls
Chairperson of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) Board Asanda Luwaca said 'young girls are our sisters, our classmates, our cousins, our peers and children'.
'It is an indictment of our inability, as a collective, to fully protect the bodies, rights and dreams of girls, especially those from poor, rural and marginalised communities, especially differently abled,' she said.
Luwaca said teenage pregnancy was not just about health, but injustice.
'It is about gender inequality, poverty, exploitation, broken family systems, absent accountability and a dangerous silence that protects perpetrators more than it protects girls.
'And until we confront these intersecting issues head-on with honesty, bravery and unflinching determination, we will continue to fail the young women of this nation. South Africa has the policies. We have the frameworks. What we need now is unapologetic implementation across every level of society,' Luwaca said.
The engagement with stakeholders is part of an initiative to establish a Roadmap to South Africa's Teenage Pregnancy Prevention and Management Response. – SAnews.gov.za
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