FEATURE
By Leonard Mukooli
BUGISU
In the rolling hills of Bugisu region lies a reality often buried by lush greenery and terraced slopes: Teenage pregnancy, writes Leonard Mukooli.
As one makes their way through the winding paths of many villages in Bugisu, they may be struck by the juxtaposition of beauty and hardship that characterises life in the region.
Everywhere one looks in villages in the region, which is made up of six districts: Bududa, Bulambuli, Manafwa, Mbale, Namisindwa and Sironko, there are signs of resilience with children playing in the fields, women balancing bundles of firewood on their heads and elders sharing stories beneath the shade of ancient trees and grass-thatched huts as they sip local brew: Kamalwa.
But amidst this scene of everyday life in the old-fashioned villages settled among the hills, there is an undercurrent of struggle of a silent epidemic that threatens the future of the region’s youth: Young girls are thrust into adulthood far too soon, their dreams eclipsed by the burden of early motherhood.
Sarah Nelima, 17, a resident of Nabweya sub-county in Bududa district moves to the nearby health facility for her antenatal check-up. With a smile and laughter upon her glowing face with white eyes, she belies the weight of her responsibilities.
With a baby wrapped and settled in her arms, Nelima shares her journey with heartbreaking honesty.
“I never imagined my life would take this turn,” she says as her eyes reflect a mix of determination and resignation: “But here I am, a mother before I even had the chance to be a child, now am a mother of one expecting to give birth to another child soon”.
She fights back tears: “I was only 14 in Senior Two when I became pregnant. My parents asked me to go and live with the man responsible for the pregnancy”.
However, according to her, the man denied the pregnancy and fled to Kenya over fear that he would be arrested and charged for ‘defiling me’.
“My father was given sh1.5m after negotiating with them as a result of this, and I’m now married and pregnant with my second child in his home,” Nelima says.
Desiring to know how and why she started the affair when she was young, Nelima says her relationship with her husband began when she met him as a friend. Whenever she asked for help to buy sanitary pads, ‘he demanded to be compensated with sex before assisting me’.
“We secretly started the affair and he would support me with lunch money and small gifts. However, due to my naivety and ignorance, I found myself pregnant and this shattered my dream of being a teacher” she adds.
Nelima’s life tale is a replica of countless other girls in Bugisu and beyond whose dreams for education and personal growth have been shattered due to poor and inadequate knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Susan Bisikwa, another teenage mother from Buwagogo sub-county in Manafwa district, dropped out of school when she was in Primary Six and became a mother at 14. This was during the COVID-19 lockdown.
She has failed to return to school and has now resorted to weeding gardens to generate funds for her child as the man responsible for the pregnancy fled to Kenya and has never returned.
The magnitude of the problem
With a compassionate look, Specioza Nabwire, a senior midwife at Bududa Hospital overseeing the maternity ward, describes her countless interactions with young mothers who come through her doors daily in need of care as unbearable.
“The prevalence of teenage pregnancy is staggering and the consequences are profound,” Nabwire says, adding: “Not just for the girls themselves but for their families and communities”.
“Many teenagers have been tempted to abort in most cases, and this has had negative consequences on their lives as they tend to carry it out stealthily with quack medics in the villages,” Nabwire says.
“Sometimes, those who keep the pregnancy have also had complications such as ruptured uterus while giving birth hence denying them the chance of bearing children in the future,” she adds.
According to 2021 UNFPA statistics fact sheet on teenage (15-19) pregnancy, Bugisu has alarmingly increased to almost one in four females getting pregnant.
The study also shows that the Bugisu region has some of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy contribution, with Bulambuli at 12.7% and Manafwa (19.1%) among those with the highest rates.
Why the vice is on the rise?
Bernard Wasike, the executive director of Mbale city-based Holistic Organisation to Promote Equality (HOPE), says complex factors cultivate the vice in the region.
According to him, some cultural norms and values have caused early marriage and childbearing. This mindset is blamed on limited access to education and healthcare, and a lack of awareness about reproductive health and contraception.
Wasike adds that there is a high level of negligence among parents on their roles and responsibilities as they are busy focusing on work other than the needs of their children.
“It’s heartbreaking that parents in our generation have taken their jobs to be more important than their children. Because of this, a huge knowledge gap has been created among young people, which perpetrators exploit to lure them into risky behaviour,” he says, adding: “Without proper guidance, our youth are at risk, we must educate them about their bodies and how to protect themselves from harm”.
Zainab Namuyindi, a superintendent of Police and the Elgon region liaison officer, says many of the young girls are defiled by older men who lure them with money and gifts and in the end, they impregnate them.
“Through our sensitisation meetings, we have realised that most of these girls are lured by bodaboda riders simply because they can offer them money for lunch,” she says. According to her, the unscrupulous men are filling the vacuum that parents have left in terms of providing for their daughters.
Elgon Police region surgeon Dr Banarbas Rubanza says there has been an upsurge of defilement cases partly because many of the community members participate in silencing many of these cases.
“I have seen many cases happen but when you try to follow up you find some stakeholders trying to negotiate to silence the parents of the victims and these never face the law,” Rubanza says.
According to her, teachers are also one of the greatest perpetrators of this crime as they have a tendency of luring girls into sex and when they impregnate them, they force them to abort.
Rubanza states the cases of teenage pregnancy and defilement are on the upsurge as he has been able to examine several teenagers every week.
“I have seen more than 12 defilement cases involving teachers, Rubanza says, adding: “There is a case where a teacher lured his student and confined her in the house for one month. He made her pregnant and later forced her to terminate it. By the time she was brought here, she had several complications”.
Mbale Resident City Commissioner (RCC) John Rex Achilla (Former) echoes that lack of sexuality education in homes and schools could be one the greatest contributors to the vice. According to him, parents fear to educate their children about the reality of the body changes they are experiencing, which has left them clueless. According to him, this has caused teenagers to want to experiment without knowing the consequences of their actions.
Solutions from within
As the sun sets behind the distant peaks, I gather with community leaders and stakeholders to discuss possible solutions to the scourge of teenage pregnancy. HOPE Mbale under the ‘Right Here Right Now’ project is now rallying other local patterns to embark on the massive sensitisation of the youths both in communities and school about their sexual reproductive health and rights.
Leah Nanduga the project co-ordinator at HOPE Mbale who has dedicated her life efforts to serving the community, says access to healthcare is crucial: “We must ensure that young mothers receive the support and resources they need to navigate pregnancy and motherhood safely”.
Nanduga adds “Through the project, they have started to penetrate schools to disseminate appropriate SRH information and are skilling the youths to make reusable sanitary pads as part of the solution to vice but also keeping clean during menstruation.
Even though the Bugisu culture of Imbalu is blamed for influencing the stunning numbers of teenage mothers, Wilson Wedaira, an elder in the Inzu Ya Masaba cultural institution, says: “We must empower our girls with knowledge and opportunities so they can plan their destinies”.
“As the cultural institution, we propose the integration of sexual health education into the districts plans” Wedaira adds.
According to him, empowering young people with the knowledge to make informed decisions is important and the institution has embarked on issuing guidance on how Kadodi has to be played.
Bududa district inspector of schools David Wekhola says the district welfare office is ensuring that young mothers are given a second opportunity for education after giving birth.
“We have a unit at Mayiya Primary School where we integrate these young mothers into school so that they don’t face stigma,” Wekhola says noting that the reason the girls are getting pregnant is because of poverty “Thus we the society doesn’t need to be judgmental to girls for the mistake they have made rather support them so that they stay in school to reclaim their future”.
Wasike further notes that the best weapon to ending this surge is empowering both boys and girls with the right sexuality education to enable them to make informed decisions in their lives.
“The surge is real it is not ending now if we fail to fight its collectivity as the community and the country at large, we shall fail to have leaders who will replace tomorrow and we will live in a society of mediocrity”
As the starts and night falls, Bugisu’s sense of resolve saturates the air. Though the road ahead may be fraught with challenges, there is a palpable determination to create a brighter future for the region’s youth.
Through education, empowerment, and collective action, Bugisu is poised to turn the tide against teenage pregnancy and pave the way for a generation of empowered young women and men
