By MOSES CHIMFWEMBE –
ELIMINATING ignorance on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) among the young people in Luapula Province is crucial to stamping out early marriages and teenage pregnancy, Chief Kalasa Lukangaba of the Ushi people of Mansa District has said.
The traditional leader has called for comprehensible advocacy on adolescent sexual and reproductive health in his chiefdom to safeguard the lives of teenage girls.
“The biggest challenge that we have regarding adolescent reproductive health is ignorance, especially in far flung areas. Our children lack information on ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy and safer sex in general,” the chief said.
He said there is need to scale up sensitisation programmes on reproductive health so that young people are equipped with knowledge to refrain from risk behaviors.
A study conducted by University of Zambia (UNZA) Public Health scholar Albertina Moraes titled – Adverse Obstetric outcomes in adolescent pregnancy in rural Zambia: The case of Mansa and Kawambwa Districts – revealed some glaring statistics about the extent of early marriages and teenage pregnancy in the region.
The research brought to the fore the adolescent birth rate which stood at 461.9 per 1000 deliveries to mothers aged between 10 and 24 years, higher than the national average at the time of the study.
It was also discovered that 69 per cent of the adolescent mothers were in their first pregnancy with the youngest being 11 years old at the time of delivery.
Furthermore, a United Nations development Programme (UNDP) report attributes the high prevalence of adolescent births in Luapula to high poverty and lower educational levels, with 64 per cent of the population living in abject poverty, 83 per cent literacy rates among 15-24 year-olds and a ratio of 0.74 girls to boys in secondary education.
Chief Kalasa says if the current trend in the region is to be reversed, there is need for a change of mindset on traditional norms that inhibit progress of girls.
He has singled out early marriages, where the practice of bride price (the money a groom pays to the bride’s family) plays a role in parents seeking financial gains from marrying off their daughters, as one practice that should be discarded to allow girls attain education without interference.
“We need to value the lives of young people, especially a girl child.
Instead of attaching monetary value to girls and treating them like commodities, people should realise that a girl child was also created in the image of God and thus, she deserves respect and protection,” the chief says.
He stresses the importance of education as key to economic emancipation success and has vowed to mete out stiff punishment on his subjects that will be found wanting of promoting or marrying off young girls, saying the practice will no longer be condoned in his chiefdom.
The traditional leader explains that his source of inspiration to championing the well-being of girls was drawn from the escalating cases of early marriages in his chiefdom and that he is ready to work with various stakeholders to retrieve girls from marriage in a bid to root out the vice.
Zambia has taken some measures to abate early marriages through policies such as the youth policy, national strategy on ending child marriage, adolescent health communication strategy, and the reproductive health policy.
Therefore, it is yet to be seen whether these policies will yield positive results in alleviating teenage pregnancy and early marriages. It is evident that Chief Kalasa’s commitment in fighting ignorance on sexual reproductive health and rights in his area and his clarion call for speedy action is testimony of how eager the traditional leader is to transform the attitude of people towards girls.
Zambia is ranked 16th in the world on child marriage, with 42 per cent of young people married by the age of 18.
Therefore, partnerships between the Government, cooperating partners, traditional leaders, civil society organisations, youth activists and the media are crucial in fostering change.