“We started dating in January last year and he would ask when we would have sex. I was not comfortable with it because I was taught in school not to have sex until I was done with my studies. But some of my friends had had sex and I felt left out.”
This is how a 15-year-old Pretoria girl made the life-changing decision that saw her join 23,000 pupils who fell pregnant in Gauteng in the past year.
This week, the government released statistics which showed that girls as young as 10 years old had given birth between April last year and March.
The young mother, who cannot be named as she is a minor, on Wednesday told Sowetan that she gave birth in February and that her boyfriend was 19 years old.
“He used condoms at first but then he stopped. He asked me if I trusted him and I said yes and then we stopped using condoms,” she said.
She explained that she and the teenage boyfriend began having sex two months into their relationship.
The young mother said she discovered that she was pregnant in September in her second trimester when her parents took her to a clinic because she was constantly ill. She said her parents were horrified and angry with her.
“At first I did not understand what was happening to me. I was sick most of the time and sometimes I missed school because of it,” said the teen mom.
“My mother asked me why I had not told her that I was sexually active because she had talks with me about sex. She would advise me about what to do and that I should not be afraid to talk to her,” she said.
She stopped attending school because she felt ashamed of being in the presence of her peers. “I gave birth in February, but I returned to school and I am repeating grade 9. My family helps me with taking care of my daughter and they give me space so that I can study, but it has been difficult,” she said.
Gauteng MEC for education Panyaza Lesufi said the department was concerned about the high number of learners who fell pregnant in the previous financial year.
“I am making contact with the MECs for health, social development and community safety regarding the pregnancies because those numbers are unacceptable and we cannot tolerate this in our province,” said Lesufi.
Lesufi said his department had a number of intervention programmes which include the Learner Pregnancy Campaign in which officials from the department of health visit schools and engage learners about the dangers of early sexual debut, sexually transmitted diseases and related information.
“We also have peer education programmes, camps and high school preparation workshops. These programmes cover a wide array of topics about the issues that are not limited to the dangers of early engagement of sexual activities, but expand healthy lifestyles, social ills and how they will negatively affect their lives,” he said.
