By Staff Reporter
A total 4 557 adolescent girls dropped out of school last year due to early pregnancies with a whooping 350 000 adolescent girls fell pregnant inside four years, leaving glaring indicators which call for urgent action from key stakeholders in Zimbabwe.
The data clearly indicates that rural girls are disproportionately affected. The stark contrast between rural and urban dropouts reflects deeper socio-economic issues and underscores the urgent need for access to education and reproductive health information
According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) data , adolescent pregnancy rate is alarming, with around 355 000 girls aged 10 to 19 falling pregnant between 2019 and 2022 in Zimbabwe. A staggering 25% of maternal deaths occur among adolescents.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says unsafe abortions due to unwanted pregnancies also common among adolescents.
“It is an indicator of girls’ and women’s unmet need for contraception. In sub-Saharan Africa, extreme poverty, inadequate access to reproductive health information and services and restrictive abortion laws cause many women to resort to clandestine abortion providers to get rid of unintended pregnancies, resulting in about 3% obtaining unsafe abortions each year,” the UNFPA said in a statement.
The organ says girls aged 15 to 19 years were twice as likely to die during childbirth than women over the age of 20 as their bodies have not yet developed.
