Youth centres among big plans to curb teenage pregnancies in Gauteng

In a bid to tackle the province's skyrocketing teenage pregnancies and abortions, Gauteng's health and wellness MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko on Tuesday said her department was planning on establishing purpose-built youth centres across the province which will provide dedicated health services and information solely for the youth. 

These centres, which will be equipped with the necessary facilities to address the health and educational needs of young people, will play a crucial role in the long-term success of preventing teenage pregnancy.

“By investing in these centres, we ensure that our interventions are not only impactful but also sustainable. These centres will serve as safe havens for young people seeking guidance and services, ensuring that our efforts are deeply rooted in the communities we aim to serve. The creation of these centres is part of our strategic plan to make health service more approachable and relevant to the needs of our youth,” Nkomo-Ralehoko said. 

This was one of the options tabled as Nkomo-Ralehoko and other stakeholders met in Benoni, Ekurhuleni, on Tuesday to discuss the scourge of teen pregnancy in the province. 

Stakeholders all agreed that the youth of Gauteng are in need of support from communities, communication with their parents and rigorous sex education programmes to lower the teenage pregnancy rate.  

This comes after shocking numbers shared by the province on Monday revealed an increase in deliveries and termination of pregnancies at public healthcare facilities in girls aged 10 to 19 years.

A total of 24,941 deliveries and termination of pregnancies were recorded in the province’s public healthcare facilities in the 2022/2023 period. This was an increase of 496 pregnancies compared with the previous year's 24,445.

The stakeholders who met on Tuesday agreed to mobilise  community leaders, youth organisations, schools and parents to address the issue in an inclusive manner. Through a multidisciplinary approach, the department plans to address social behavioural changes by providing sexual and reproductive health education to adolescents and youths in and out of school and health literacy programmes in communities and schools.

LoveLife Gauteng co-ordinator Refiloe Gololo, who took part in the department’s initiative, said numerous factors contributed to the rise in pregnancies. These include being unable to do school awareness programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic due to lockdown regulations.

“As loveLife, we need to bring awareness to schools. For the past year or two, we didn’t have peer educators going to the schools, doing awareness campaigns, and coming up with strategies to curb this. Our young people didn’t have access to information,” Gololo said.

Teenagers have the option of attending dialogues hosted by loveLife to tackle the lack of communication between parents and their children and to discuss social ills affecting their communities.

“I think lack of information is a problem and also lack of resources because in an area where there are resources, you don’t have that problem, but where you need healthcare facilities, you don’t have information on family planning or can’t get it,” she said.

Another issue was the distribution of condoms to teenagers which was not allowed in schools, said Soul City Institute for Social Justice’s Gauteng programme officer Nondumiso Khethwa.

She said clubs should be established in schools to speak on topics of sexual health, distribute condoms and prepare teenagers on what to do once they are ready to engage in sex.

“There is also a stigma attached to condoms and dual contraceptives and that when young children are exposed to them, they are being sent to engage in sex. However, we are saying that should a young person ever be ready, they at least will have condoms the day they are ready to engage.”

She said the province should ensure all of their clinics are youth-friendly as young children often face judgment from neighbours employed at the clinics when seeking sexual healthcare.

Instead, young people resort to walking out of the healthcare facilities and never returning, said Khethwa.

“They go there wanting contraceptives but meet a security guard at the gate who asks them what they came for. After that, they bump into the cleaning lady who is a neighbour and judges them. By the time they get to the clerk, they are not sure whether to continue or leave. Most young people would leave and avoid seeking information and contraceptives,” she said.