Eastern Province recorded over 1,400 pregnancies among girls aged below fifteen from January 2021 to mid-year of 2022.
This is according to Eastern Province HIV and AIDS Coordinating Advisor, Emmanuel Chama.
Mr Chama has said that a total of 922 girls under the age of 15 fell pregnant in 2021 while 491 girls were pregnant between January and June this year.
He said in 2021 Katete recorded the highest number of teenage pregnancies, with 144 girls falling pregnant while in the first half of 2022, Lumezi was in the lead with 66 pregnant girls below the age of 15.
“I am sad to report to you some of the challenges we have with regards to adolescents’ health. We are concerned that the age category has dropped to below 15, which is defilement by law,” he said.
He further expressed worry that these cases are mostly not reported to the police.
Mr Chama elaborated that statistics this year Lumezi is in the lead with 66 cases, followed by Katete with 46, Lusangazi 45, Petauke 42, Sinda 42 while Vubwi is the lowest with 2 cases.
“In 2021, Katete topped with 144 cases, followed by Chama district with 108, Petauke with 101 and the lowest was Vubwi with 23,” he said.
The Province HIV and AIDS Coordinator appealed to parents to report cases to the police so that a measure to curtail similar behaviour is achieved when the process of the law is followed.
Meanwhile, Eastern Province Deputy Permanent Secretary Beauty Phiri has described the statistics as a shocker.
She said it is a very disappointing route that children are being curtailed from their normal lives due to the greed in society.
“The lives of these children are being destroyed. More needs to be done by all stakeholders, including the police, parents and traditional leaders, among others to ensure that these cases are curtailed,” she said.
A total number of 1,413 girls under the age of 15 are reported to have fallen pregnant in Eastern province between January 2021 and June 2022.
We’re here again! What’s with this province and teenage pregnancy? Where is the Ministry of Health; and sex education – Something amiss here!
It is thrice that number in southern province
“……Lumezi was in the lead with 66 pregnant girls below the age of 15…..”
Yes their ka MP is too busy with school boy antics in Parliament and getting suspended to look into this…….
If the Paramount Chief is a peodo …what do you expect from his subjects!!
Eastern Province doesn’t have one paramount Chief. It has half a dozen kingdoms
Says you with your hiv positive chief mukuuni there where you come from
Kaizar Zulu has been very busy in this province ,huh?
Not as busy as mukuni
Forget provincialising the issue. It’s happening throughout the republic. A question to our doctors one hypothesis states that for females it’s better to have kids at an early age than at an older time. Even if it may be socially unokay it’s biologically beneficial
Even at less than 15years? Are you sure?
Seemingly there’s much mismanagement of sex education among stakeholders due to a whole range of hypocritical approaches
With such mindsets you can not reduce teenage pregnancies ,,,these chaps think its okay to sleep with primary school children; I remember an incident at our plot decades ago in Lusaka where we had the old plot watchman have a teenage girl from his village as his wife the girl was just 11 years old. They were taken to Police and all Police did is detain him issued a warn and caution the girl didnt have family in the capital no organisation to take her in…so its back to the monster she saw as her saviour. Luckily we had to send her back to her village and sacked the guy but remember he paid for her so the parents in thevillage will just send her back.