DPM COMING FOR FATHERS

MBABANE – On one hand they were carrying bundles of joy, but awaiting them back home was misery.

This is the story of some of the teen mothers who gave birth to babies on Christmas Day at the Mbabane Government Hospital, last week Tuesday.
Some of the young mothers highlighted that they had to endure their pregnancies on their own since the fathers were nowhere to be seen.

One of the young mothers, aged 19, said she dropped out of school due to the pregnancy, but was left to fend for herself as her boyfriend had disappeared.
She said the burden was now on her parents to look after the baby financially because the father of the minor had disappeared.

A nurse at the Mbabane Government Hospital said they were witnessing too many teen mothers who had no place being in a maternity ward, but should be in class.
The youngest mother this year was a 15-year-old girl who had just sat for her Junior Certificate exams while another 19-year-old gave birth to triplets.

discharged

However, a majority of the young mothers who were discharged a day after they had given birth were on their own as they did not have their boyfriends to meet them, while others walked to the bus rank to try and get transport back home. 
It is in that regard that government, through the Deputy Prime Ministers office, wants to take action.

 “I am coming for you,” was the strong warning from the Deputy Prime Minister (DPM), Themba Masuku, to the men who had impregnated underage teenage girls.
The DPM said he learnt with shock that one of the Christmas babies was born to a teenage mother, aged 15.

“I have already asked the Ministry of Health to compile for me a list of the underaged mothers who had been impregnated and I am coming for those men,” said Masuku.
He said impregnating a 15-year-old girl was criminal in every respect.
Masuku made these comments when interviewed on what he thought was the cause of so many teenage pregnancies.

breaking

He said some men were breaking the law and once he was furnished with the list, his office would come armed with the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence (SODV) Act of 2018 and the Children Welfare and Women Protection Act of 2012.
Masuku said such young girls should not be impregnated. “If we allow this to continue then Vision 2022 would be in absolute jeopardy,” he said. The DPM said as soon as the list was ready, social workers from his office would be dispatched to assess the situation countrywide and the perpetrators would be brought  to book.

Last week, the 15-year-old girl who gave birth to a Christmas baby, during the interview with this publication, she said she had recently sat for her Junior Certificate examination.
enable
She had said she had not had the opportunity to inform either her parents or her boyfriend about the birth. Due to her age, the medical practitioners had to deliver the baby by caesarean section to enable her to have a safe delivery.                         
Masuku said although the birth of any baby should be celebrated, the country should not rejoice in children giving birth to other children.

Minister of Health Lizzy Nkosi also noted that the mothers seemed to be young, which was also a concern highlighted by the former minister, Sibongile Simelane.
Some of the mothers highlighted that due to their pregnancy they had been forced to drop out of school.

Nationally, the number of babies who were born on Christmas Day was 68, which shows an increase of nine when compared to Christmas babies who were born in 2017.
Some of the provisions of the SODV Act which criminalise sex;

(6) (6) The circumstance in which a person who is incapable in law of appreciating the nature of the sexual act which causes penetration, referred to in subsection (3)(c), includes circumstances where such a person is, at the time of the commission of such a sexual act−
l     asleep;
l     unconscious;
l     under the influence of any medicine, drug, alcohol or other substance to the extent that the person’s consciousness or judgement is adversely affected;
l     a mentally disabled person; or
l     a person below the age of sixteen years.

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