Health Reporter
A workshop to discuss the findings of the National Assessment on Adolescent Pregnancy held in Harare Wednesday ended on a high note with the government and aligned stakeholders calling for combined efforts to end the corrosive vice.
The Assessment was conducted by the Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research Zimbabwe under the leadership of the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare with support of UNICEF, UNESCO and UNFPA.
“Adolescent pregnancy rate in Zimbabwe is high. Nearly 1 in 10 adolescents give birth every year in the country (MICS 2019).
“About 50% of these pregnancies are unintended and a quarter of them result in illegal and unsafe abortions increasing the risk of childbirth complications and maternal mortality. One in four maternal deaths in Zimbabwe are adolescents or young women (representing 25% of maternal deaths in Zimbabwe),” the assessment established in part.
A key finding of the National Assessment on Adolescent Pregnancies in Zimbabwe is that 21% of Antenatal Care bookings were among adolescents aged 10-19 years, translating to 358,458 pregnant adolescents from an estimated 1,706,946 bookings made in 1,560 health care facilities between 2019 and 2022.
Furthermore, the study shows that 1,532 maternal deaths were recorded over the same period, with around 25% of them being among adolescent and young women under 24 years.
The following key sectors were encouraged to undertake below listed recommendations on board.
Education
● Keep boys and girls in school and develop strategies for learning to continue even in
humanitarian situations
● Scale up interventions to promote gender equality, address gender norms, roles and
relationships
● Engage of men and boys to assess and address gender norms and normative behaviour
in schools and at community level
● Continue to reach boys and girls with Comprehensive Sexuality Education. At least
73.6% of girls cited schoolteachers as their source of Sexual and Reproductive Health
and Rights information
Health
● Scale up tailored, inclusive, age-appropriate access to SRHR information and services
● Adaptation of a differentiated model of SRHR service provision for adolescents
which is client centered and addresses known facility-based challenges.
● Empower health care workers and student nurses to provide tailored non-judgmental
and on stigmatizing SRHR services.
● Continue to mine the data to inform interventions.
Gender and youth
● Continue investing to reach adolescents and young people in hard-to-reach
communities with lifesaving GBV services and information
● Ensure meaningful participation of adolescents and young people in all initiatives
● Link communities to services and information on GBV through use of community-
based volunteers
● Invest in social mobilisation for GBV prevention and response in communities by
engaging with traditional and religious leaders
● Invest in livelihoods programmes to address poverty for women and girls especially in
communities affected by climate change
Social protection
● Advocacy for the government to increase domestic resources to social protection,
education and health services to improve provision of essential services.
● Enforcement of the marriages act – prevent child pledging, and early marriages.
● Investment in interventions that support a second chance to learning for girls for
example affordable community-based day care while young mother goes to school
● Strengthen the referral mechanism and pathway. A coordinated approach within the
context of the national case management system.
● Empower children with knowledge of how to report abuse and increase their
knowledge of service providers in their communities
● Actively involve communities through Child Protection community structures for the
purpose of prevention and response.
● Strengthen family systems and positive parenting strategies. A dysfunctional family
system can contribute to adolescent pregnancies.
