KUCHING: The One Stop Teen Pregnancy Committee (OSTPC) has identified several factors which contributed to the increasing number of teen pregnancies in Sarawak.
Welfare, Community Well-being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said that the committee is currently trying to tackle these issues that contributes to teenage pregnancy.
“The committee has successfully identified five main factors and I hope that they will be able to tackle these factors over the next few years,” she added.
Fatimah, who is also the OSTPC chairman, revealed that the first factor contributing to teenage pregnancy is underage marriage. However, the statistics are not clear.
“So far, there has been a decrease in Islamic marriages. Same goes to civil marriage. However, there has been an increase in customs (adat) weddings,” she said.
School dropouts are the second contributing factor to teen pregnancies. The 2018 statistics from Sarawak Health Department Office had shown that 84 per cent of teenagers are those who left school before getting pregnant, and the two per cent are those who did not attend school.
“For this, we shall have constant monitoring and provide advices especially to parents of teenagers, that their children should be in school, obtaining education,” said Fatimah.
The third factor is repeated cases of teenage pregnancy, especially those who get pregnant for up to four times, which is also related to underage marriage.
Fatimah also told that the fourth contributing factor was sexual assault.
Statistics from the state Criminal Investigation Department had reported an increasing trend of teen rape victims who got pregnant from the year 2017 up to Sept 2019. The number increased from 19 teenagers in 2017 to 41 teenagers in 2019.
“That is the saddest thing that could happen to any teenager. Some of the cases are pending, while some cases had been solved.
“The offenders have been charged and convicted. Hopefully, the cases would be solved as soon as possible,” she said.
The final factor is socio-economic where poverty affects the teenagers’ chances in getting education. Those living in rural areas are also contributing the numbers of teenage pregnancy.
“These communities are ‘hard to reach community’. Therefore, the awareness of teen pregnancy couldn’t reach these communities well,” she said.
