NGO to Look Into Adolescent Pregnancies Reports

The Social Empowerment and Education Programme (SEEP) office has received three reports of teenage pregnancies from three villages.

Programme director Chantelle Khan said the matter was reported to them by repective village headmen, who said it was concerning that the victims were aged 13, 14 and 15.

Ms Khan said the cases were classified as statutory rape because of the age of the victims, who were all boarding students.

“We have been working in these districts for a long time and this is the first time that it has come out and we can’t say the name of the district, but the village headmen are struggling with it,” she said.

“The report has just come to us and we couldn’t go out due to the restrictions, but we have reported the matter to the authorities.

“Because it’s very sensitive, we’re going to go in on a face to face visit for the next few weeks. We want to see if there are other districts or is it just confined to one district and what’s the story behind it, whether it was incest or rape because even if it’s consensual, it’s still rape because of the age group.”

Ms Khan also said adolescent smoking was a serious issue highlighted by the village headmen.

Attempts to get a response from Police before this edition went to press were unsuccessful.