Is family planning the right tool to prevent teenage pregnancies?

By Elias Hakizimana & Alexia Bizumuremyi.

Impregnated at 15 years old in 2009 in Nyamagabe district, Marie Chantal Usanase parents totally rejected her.

That is when Usanase’s embittered life started as the perpetrator also disappeared and then she took the road to Kigali looking for domestic work after abandoning her baby at nine-year old month in a rural area.

She said she was impregnated since she had no knowledge about sexual reproductive health at such a young age.

She started a single life after dropping out of school.

She is one of 5,415 girls who experienced bad life in Gasabo district.

The young lady who is currently 25 years old residing in the Kacyiru sector of Kigali city had never expected to become a mother at her such young age of 15.

Activists say that children start doing sex at their early ages, resulting to unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs).

However, Many teenage girls in Rwanda who are still falling into the category of children, (i.e: under 18 years old) fear to go to health centers to access contraceptives as part of various kinds of family planning methods because they are not allowed to do so.

Usanase said she started as domestic work earning Rwf5,000 per month but because she had no access to family planning methods and limited knowledge about reproductive health, she was again impregnated while in Kigali.

“I worked for over 4 months as a domestic worker but the boss never paid me. I got another job but the situation became worse since the husband in that home was always forcing me into sexual intercourse and therefore I also left without pay,” she recounted.

Contaminating HIV/AIDS

She later started a job in a public bar in 2011 at 17 years old.

“My colleague with whom we used to live in one house was a prostitute. I would come back home from my job in a public bar and found out that she had brought men in a house. Since I was still young at 17 years old and I was new in the city struggling with life, she convinced to always choose a man with whom to have sex pledging that he could marry me or give me money,” she said.

I kept doing sex as a business and I got pregnant again, she added.

“It was until I got contaminated with HIV/AIDS and three years ago I started Antiretroviral drugs (ARVs),” she narrated.

This young mother said that she did not have enough information about family planning and that some men withdraw the condoms during sex which leads to become pregnant at any time.

“I knew that family planning is for women who have husbands and being pregnant is sometimes the reason for men who withdraw condoms during sexual intercourse. This happened when I got pregnant for the second born because the man used a condom but I was surprised to later know that he impregnated me.”  She said.

She is  one of 30 girls in the Kacyiru sector with HIV/AIDS who have formed a savings association that  have committed to avoid transmitting the disease to other people  by sharing testimonies in different campaigns, churches and the community in Kigali city urging people to protect themselves against HIV.

The Ministry of Health in partnership with various health development partners has been launching campaigns to sensitize Rwandans especially youth about Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHRs) countrywide in order to help the country reduce early pregnancies and Sexual Transmitted illnesses (STIs).

Rwanda counted 17,849 teenagers who were impregnated in 2016 and 17, 337 teenagers impregnated in 2017. This number rose to 19,832 teenagers who were impregnated in 2018 and it slightly reduced to 15,656 from January to August 2019.

Gaps in laws

Speaking to The Inspirer, Athanase Rukundo, the Operation Manager in HDI said that main intervention is to give youth adequate information about SRHRs in order to curb the trends in the increase of early pregnancies.

However, he raised a challenge that under 18 years old girls are not allowed by Rwandan laws to access Health Reproductive services such as contraceptives.

“It is still a challenge for youth under 18 years old to access Health Reproductive services such as family planning. We are discussing with concerned entities to see what can be done to tackle the problem of early pregnancies and advocate for youth to access reproductive health services,” Rukundo said.

Article 7 of the law relating to human reproductive health provides that every person having attained the maturity age has the right to decide for oneself in relation to human reproductive health issues.

However, the maturity age is 18 years. Anyone below that age is considered a minor.

 “We are thinking about many solutions to tackle these issues of concern, youth need adequate information and access to reproductive healthcare services. This requires joint collaboration of concerned entities.

Patience Iribagiza, Executive Director of AFRO ARK organization that caters for the rights of key populations said that they will soon approach parents, youth and health service providers to brief them about the role of family planning among the youths.

“We are going to look for a sustainable solution together and we are going to mobilize parents on how they can talk to their children about sexual reproductive health and what decisions to make in case they make unprotected sex,” Iribagiza noted.

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