Teen pregnancy rate reduced by 14 pct last year — Ministry
KUCHING: Ministry of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development has, through its efforts, reduced Sarawak’s teenage pregnancy rate by 14 per cent last year, achieving its Key Performance Indicator ( KPI).
Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah said her ministry’s KPI set an annual reduction of 10 per cent and the success had been good thus far.
“There were 2,481 teenage pregnancies in 2016. Compared to 2017 with 2,130 cases, there is a 14 per cent reduction. Up to June this year, there were 992 teenage pregnancies.
“There has been further reduction since we started our efforts in 2014. A lot of hard work has been done, from one community to another community, urban to rural,” she said when opening the 13th International Conference on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology held at Pullman Hotel here yesterday.
Fatimah said statistics showed that teenage pregnancy in Sarawak had been high before 2014.
She said her ministry was not only concerned about the number of teenage pregnancies in Sarawak but also the impact of such cases on the teenage mother, the child and the family.
According to her, a total of 3,866 teenage pregnancies were recorded in Sarawak in 2012 and the number of cases went up to 4,078 in 2013.
“When we started our project in 2014, the number was reduced to 3,401 and reduced further to 2,909 in 2015.”
Despite the reduction of cases, Fatimah said her ministry would not rest on its laurels because there was still much to be done.
She said her ministry would not have achieved its KPI of 10 per cent annual reduction without the collaboration with other agencies, naming among the agencies that the ministry had been collaborating with as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Royal Malaysia Police and National Registration Department.
“Although the number of teenage pregnancies in Sarawak is high, the number of abandoned babies is not that many,” she pointed out.
She added the number of abandoned infants was six in 2010 and 2011, eight in 2012 and 2013, three in 2014, four in 2015, 10 in 2016 and four last year.
“It was quite high in 2016 but the number went down last year,” she said.
There were 2,481 teenage pregnancies in 2016. Compared to 2017 with 2,130 cases, there is a 14 per cent reduction. Up to June this year, there were 992 teenage pregnancies. Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah, Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development