The fight against unwanted pregnancies among young adolescents is an activity which occupies a prominent place in one of SOHEDEO’s programs which aims to prevent and respond to contemporary social problems.
Within our zone of intervention [Nyabitekeri sector in Nyamasheke district], the most contemporary and difficult issue is pregnancies among teenagers. The number of teen/single moms is increasingly becoming a social problem so that coping with such a matter requires enough interveners and specific activities [to be carried out].
Despite that the local government and churches are doing interesting work in the framework of socioeconomical, emotional and psychological reintegration of teen/single mothers, pregnancy cases are still augmenting. At SOHEDEO – Amahoro Iwacu, we totally support 30 single moms but it’s regrettable that 24 among them i.e., 80%, gave birth under the age of 18 years. By way of example, among our beneficiaries, there’s someone who’s now 17 years old, her child boy is now 3 years old. Clearly, she got pregnant when she was 13 years old. This is very sad.
In dealing with this contemporary issue, SOHEDEO – Amahoro Iwacu is committed to carry out many activities: Training single mothers on reproductive health as it has been noticed that they don’t know how to calculate their menstrual cycle, support them in processes of civil registration for their children, because in most cases those that impregnated them refute the idea of registering their children saying that they aren’t theirs [Here, there is a strong need and request to help in doing DNA test, hopefully SOHEDEO will have enough resources to support in this particular issue], offering psychological support and accompaniment to pregnant teens [among SOHEDEO beneficiaries, some are pregnant, so we accompany them during and after their pregnancy], reconciling teen moms and their parents, meeting with alleged fathers of those children to see if they can accept assume their responsibilities, awareness raising sessions in the community to fight against teen pregnancies and we are initiating Voluntary Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs).
Supporting teen mothers and their children is preventing child abuse and ensuring child protection.