By Akani Nkuna
Teenage pregnancy is not only a health issue, but a social justice emergency that needs collective action to combat it, according to the Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Mmapaseka Letsike.
“In other words, today’s teen pregnancy is tomorrow’s poverty and inequality. We must recognise this as not only a public health issue but a social justice emergency. The high incidence of adolescent pregnancy in our country is interlinked with other scourges – HIV and other STI infection rates,” she said.
Letsike was speaking during a stakeholder engagement on teenage pregnancies in Pretoria on Wednesday.
In 2024, there were 90,000 reported cases of teenage pregnancies amongst girls aged between 10 and 19. A total of 2348 of those pregnancies were between girls aged 10 and 14.
“A child as young as 10 becoming pregnant is not just a statistic, but evidence of a profound societal failure and, in most cases, a horrific crime since a girl that young cannot legally give consent. This crisis threatens the very foundation of our social and economic development as teenage pregnancy poses a serious threat to the health, rights, education and socio-economic wellbeing of girls,” Letsike said.
There were a number of factors to blame for the scourge, including sexual abuse and exploitation by teachers and other adults, poverty and transactional relations. She said that school dropouts and limited opportunities also increased the risk of early pregnancy.
“Teenage pregnancy in South Africa is driven by a toxic mix of sexual violence, exploitation of the vulnerable, inadequate education and services, and socio-economic pressures. It is a multi-dimensional challenge that no single intervention can fix. Understanding these root causes energises our call to action and we must respond on all these fronts simultaneously,” she said.
Despite ongoing efforts, the response remained too limited to match the scale and complexity of the issue. Letsike noted that while several initiatives existed, including comprehensive sexuality education rolled out in schools by the Basic Education Department, they often worked in isolation.
“The diagnostic evaluation conducted recently found that while we have many policies and programmes, there is no comprehensive strategy specifically targeting teenage pregnancy. Efforts are fragmented, donor-dependent and uneven across provinces. Implementation has thus been inconsistent,” the deputy minister said.
She said the point of Wednesday’s engagement was to galavanise all stakeholders to join forces with shared goals and synchronised actions to tackle the crisis.
“In essence, an all-of-society approach means everyone in their lane but moving forward together. We have to synchronise our efforts like an orchestra – different instruments, one symphony,” said Letsike.
One such step was developing a comprehensive national teenage pregnancy strategy that would set common targets and establish accountability mechanisms.
INSIDE POLITICS