By Jackline Lucky James
Reporter
Every year, an estimated 21 million girls aged 15–19 years in developing regions become pregnant and approximately 12 million of them give birth. Globally, ABR has decreased from 64.5 births per 1000 women (15–19 years) in 2000 to 41.3 births per 1000 women in 2023. However, rates of change have been uneven in different regions of the world. According to MEDICI CONL’AFRICA, teenage pregnancy in South Sudan is a major challenge affecting girls’ and young women’s health and their social, economic, and political empowerment.
It says South Sudan is among the 10 countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage (52%), a condition often leading to early pregnancy, and one-third of the 15-19-year-old girls in the country have started childbearing and 96 percent of women of reproductive ages do not use any contraceptive method. The causes can be social, cultural, political, and health systems. In this story a Nineteen years pregnant has said her husband abandoned her with her second pregnancy.
A young lady identified as Yasmin is a young mother who got married five years ago from Uganda and lives in Juba currently said after she got pregnant with a second baby from her husband, he started misbehaving. She told the sonke reporter that she is now four months pregnant with the second baby “When we were in Uganda together with his mother, he was not behaving this way to me and since we came to Juba he started mistreating me“said Yasmin.
She mentioned that when they arrived in Juba in 2020, her husband started denying her food which was not there before. She added that the man decided to forcefully take their firstborn to his mum in Uganda as one way to avoid providing food in the house.
Yasmin revealed that her husband is a tuk-tuk driver who works every day but decided purposely not to cater to her needs as a pregnant woman now he sleeps outside their home leaving her alone in the house with even no money for food. Yasmin emotionally complained that “Two days now my husband left the house and has not come back home, he left me with nothing, no money for food, am only eating in the neighbor’s house” She added that her husband might have joined the peer groups making him to forget his responsibilities as the man of the house
Yasmin narrated that before getting pregnant, she opened her tea place in Jebel market for survival but due to the economic crisis in the country, the business collapsed “The worst part is that my parents are all in Uganda Arua district, I cannot go back to them because I have no money since I have been not working,” highlighted
She said that her husband banned her from using a phone which she could have at least used to communicate with her, and now appeals to anyone who knows her husband to take her back to her parents in Uganda since he is no longer in love with her. Yasmin urged young ladies not to fall for men before studying the behaviors Efforts to speak to the parents of Yasmin were unsuccessful.