Research Intern in the Political Economy Faculty, Keabetswe Mogosoane reflects on the rise in pre-teen pregnancies as a symptom of gender-based violence.

 

Pre-teen pregnancy is one of the challenges that are on a rapid rise in South Africa and in need of urgent intervention. However, the problem is that we fail at understanding what is causing the increase in pre-teenage pregnancy. We understand that various and inter-related factors, such as poverty, unemployment, dropping out of school and the lack of information on sexuality cause pre-teen pregnancy, but the information is limited causing the real vulnerability of the children – aged 10 to 14years old. Part of the reason why pre-teen pregnancy is missing from our developmental discourses is because of the minimal research and lack of in-depth media reporting.

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