Let’s talk about our reality: Are we failing our young people?

THE recent picture of a first year University of Zimbabwe student lying lifeless in a pool of blood after trying to abort a pregnancy using a coat hanger brings a chill to one’s spine.

If she made it to university, surely she should be knowledgeable about pregnancy and how to prevent it? Surely, she should understand enough of her anatomy to know that a coat hanger is unlikely to dislodge a foetus, that what she was doing was damaging to her internal organs.

The reality is that she and millions of young people like her progress from adolescence into adulthood without receiving this vital lifesaving information. We celebrate their high school achievements in Maths, Science and Geography, but we fail to equip them with the basic information about growing up, about relationships and about their bodies.

We fail our young people when we insist on abstinence-only education; we fail them when we exclude content on condoms and contraceptives from our curricula; we fail them when we don’t prepare teachers to teach them the vital life topics; we fail as parents and community when we don’t listen to young people and talk to them about puberty, relationships and yes, when we don’t talk about when to have sex and how to have safe sex.

In the last few months, the East and Southern Africa region has been abuzz with shocking statistics and stories on teenage pregnancies following the launch of the “Let’s Talk!” campaign.

In Zimbabwe, 7 000 girls dropped out of school due to pregnancy and child marriage in 2018.

In the same year, South Africa had 117 000 girls and Malawi 85 000 girls in the 10-19 year bracket fall pregnant.

In Namibia, (a much smaller country) 3 500 pupils have fallen pregnant in the last two years. It is not just teenage pregnancy that is concerning. With 200 new infections daily among adolescent girls and young women in South Africa, 44 infections daily in Tanzania and 107 daily in Mozambique, HIV poses a real and growing threat to the health and well being of our young people.

These statistics are hardly surprising because our young people leave our schools with limited, incomplete and inaccurate information on their bodies, on how to relate with others and how the decisions and choices they make have an effect on others.

We are missing the opportunity to teach young people about sex, and safer sex behaviours before they become sexually active so that they can be adequately prepared for a healthy and consensual relationship when the right time comes.

Let’s take advantage of the high enrolments in our education system to ensure that we equip our children and young people from as early as 10 years with age-appropriate and culturally-relevant knowledge and skills to make responsible choices about their lives through sexuality education.

Some may argue that age 10 is too early. But do they know that data tells us that more young people are falling pregnant in the last two grades of primary school than in the first two grades of secondary school? This implies that we need to start talking to young people early to ensure that we instil positive behaviours.

The UN International Technical Guidance on sexuality education is an evidence-based guide that promotes scientifically accurate and age-appropriate teaching about sexuality, including learning the facts about sex and reproduction before age 12.

Sexuality education is about more than sex — it includes information that helps young people to understand their bodies and the changes of puberty; it equips them to navigate relationships, and provides them with vital life skills that parents and caregivers are not always able or willing to provide.

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