Over half teenage pregnancies in Serian involve unwed mums
SERIAN: Teenage pregnancies remain a major concern in Serian Division as more than half of those reported last year involved unwed mothers.
Bukit Semuja assemblyman John Ilus said unwed mothers made up 56.99 per cent out of the 93 teenage pregnancies recorded in the division in 2017.
He said for the first half of this year, 44 teenage pregnancies were recorded in the division.
“The state government, particularly the Ministry of Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development, is seriously looking into this trend of teenage pregnancies recorded last year in several divisions in Sarawak.
“We all need to work together and increase our efforts to bring down the number of cases through awareness, advocacy, and prevention programmes together with the strategic partners of the ministry,” he said when closing Serian Division’s One Stop Teenage Pregnancy Committee (OSTPC) Roadshow recently.
John said ministry statistics showed increases of teenage pregnancies in Sri Aman Division and Limbang Division at 56.7 per cent and 17.3 per cent respectively last year.
Based on the statistics, the number of teenage pregnancies in Sarawak remains among the highest in Malaysia, as pregnant teenagers comprised 6.4 per cent to 9.9 per cent of the total expectant mothers registered in 2017, compared to the nationwide average rate of 2.4 per cent to 4.1 per cent.
He said thanks to the ministry’s efforts of settinag key performance indicator to reduce such cases by 10 per cent each year, the total number of teenage pregnancies Sarawak-wide recorded a decrease of 14.1 per cent from 2,481 cases in 2016 to 2,130 cases last year.
“What is still worrying in Sarawak is the number of cases involving unwed teenage mothers. In 2017, 54.6 per cent of cases had involved unwed mothers compared to 54.1 per cent the previous year,” he said.
He hoped more intervention programmes could further reduce such cases and thanked the Social Development Council for organising such programmes at SMK Balai Ringin last year and SMK Serian in April.
On another matter, John said he supports amendments to the Child Act 2011, which give better protection to victims of sexual crimes and hoped this would be a deterrent to such offences.
The state government, particularly the Ministry of Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development, is seriously looking into this trend of teenage pregnancies recorded last year in several divisions in Sarawak. We all need to work together and increase our efforts to bring down the number of cases through awareness, advocacy, and prevention programmes together with the strategic partners of the ministry. John Ilus, Bukit Semuja assemblyman