By Mutungirehe Samuel
There are some parents in Nyagatare District, Karangazi Sector, and Villages of Rwenyemera and Kizirakome who accuse their colleagues of having abandoned their responsibilities, thereby not caring about the essence of teaching their children, especially young girls when they are still young about productive health, as well as the right behavior to their children, thus making them vulnerable to fornication, whereby some conceive unwanted pregnancies.
This was said during the citizens’ meeting which reconvened in Karangazi Sector on 28th September 2021, while observing Covid-19 Protocols, as a preventive measure as well as spreading the pandemic. The participants were the citizens from two neighboring Cells, i.e Kizirakome in Rwenyemera Village and Kizirakome Village in the Village of Kizirakome.
One of the parents who is known as Grace who had participated in the meeting negated in front of the citizens’ meeting for knowing any of the young girl who hails from Kizirakome Village who was impregnated.
She said, “I don’t know them in our Village. No, I haven’t heart of such incidences, not at all with regard to our Village about the child who was impregnated.”
She refuted this moreover when there is an under 18 girl from the neighborhood of Rwenyemera Village offices who gave birth while she was sitting for the primary leaving examination which was recently written.
Another parent challenged her and she said, “Apparently we have here in the Village, who has been a P6 pupil when they were about to sit for the examination, they realized that she was pregnant, we convinced her to tell us the person who impregnated her and she refused.”
She highlighted the major cause of the problem, and said, “What I can say is the fact that some parents have got the role regarding their children’s unruly behaviors, where you some of them let their children go to watch movies and come back at 9.00 pm, and the parent opens for the child, and you start wondering as where the child has been.
I am requesting parents to be responsible in upbringing their children properly, there are some circumstances when the child gets spoilt as a result of his unruly behavior, however, at times parents become careless in the context of upbringing their children, for instance not rebuking the children when they do mistakes.”
Mutesi Jane is a girl we found at hers in the Cell where the Offices for Cell is located, she told us that the parents are the primary factors of teenage pregnancies.
She said, “Parents have negative mindsets pertaining to sensitizing children, now if you don’t talk to the child about reproductive health, who else will tell her/him? What they do is to provide the child with the requirements and go to school; understandably she has to come back with such a pregnancy. The first thing you ask a parent is to tell hell her that you are sick, probably when you are having your first menstruation period because you happen not to be known, and if I don’t ask you how are suffering health-wise, when I don’t approach you and ask you how the day has been, and if you ask them about the health issues regarding girls she/he starts rebuking you while retorting, don’t you see that I am justified to put blame on parents.”
Mupfasoni Liliane reiterated that the problem of teenage pregnancies is prevalent like any other place in the country; however, she thinks that there should be a solution in order to decrease the problem
She said, “I am requesting that you make advocacy on our behalf with regard to children who completed senior 6, who never got bursaries, to have a technical institution so as to offer them vocational training lest enabling them to acquire employment. It’s imperative that they get empowered professionally, because it can help them as a solace, be it the ones who have produced as well as those who haven’t yet produced, who completed 9 years, because after finishing they become redundant and jobless.”
The Representative of CNF in Karangazi Sector Mukaruhogo Phoibe said that according to the inspection they carried out last year, they found out that they had 97 girls who had teenage pregnancies.
She said that according to the conversations she had with the parents they found out that there were some parents who neglect children, by not talking to them about the relevance of reproductive health.
She said, “We discovered that there were obstacles, because there are some families which can’t dare to talk about reproductive health with their children, and that’s where the major problem lies, because by the time the child in her teenage is ignorant about her physiological features, and the second issue is considering talking about reproductive health as a taboo.”
There were problems because some of them would wonder how they would dare talk to their children about reproductive health, regarding sex, and it’s in this context that we must overcome fear and teach them the appropriate education which is in line with the national cultural values and others in general.”
She further pointed out that some parents in Karangazi Sector feel that if a child engages in a sexual encounter with her consent without being raped they don’t regard it as gender-based violence.
“However, any time she has sex with a person who is older than her, and when that child is under 18 years old, in fact, its violence, because there are some body parts you don’t have to touch on the child’s body, talking to her about sexually related conversations and others, those too constitute gender-based violence against a child. If there is such mindset that if they haven’t raped her, is that also a gender-based violence?” She said.
The President of Karangazi Sector Consultative Council Busingye Aida said that there are many causes, most especially that within some households the behavior of the parents is not good.
“ Where you find that they are characterized by violence, for instance, if they spend night period when they are fighting it implies that the children too aren’t secured, and if a child runs to the neighbor or else to the bushland meets there a person who violates her she has to conceive.” She said.
She also points out the issue of ignorance, where the child faces violence, instead of the parent’s intervention to look for the one who has done such thing; they just keep quiet, so that the child who has impregnated a fellow child doesn’t fuel antagonism between families at the family level.
