Johannesburg – Like William Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the beginning of the Renaissance 400 years ago, we are today being confronted with a moral crisis and failure of society to protect the girl child.
News that hundreds of adolescent girls fell pregnant between March 2020 and April this year should have all of us hanging our heads in shame.
The time really is out of joint. On Friday, I read a story about a 16-year-old girl, Monica*.
She was sexually violated by a neighbour and fell pregnant as a result. Her dreams lie in peril. Her bulging stomach is a permanent reminder that in South Africa, a girl child can easily be discarded as another statistic of shame and gross neglect. Monica is one of the thousands of girls in Gauteng who fell pregnant way before their time.
The fate of the charlatan who preyed on the young girl is not yet known.
What we know is that society has failed Monica. And more concerning, Monica’s story is not unique.
There are thousands other young girls whose silent plight should haunt all who claim to have a good conscience.
The lack of voice, the sense of despair, the lack of institutional support, especially when it comes to what is happening to our children, there is no vocabulary for this kind of a situation.
Adolescent pregnancy is not just a health issue, it is a developmental issue. It is, in some instances, deeply rooted in poverty, gender inequality, violence, power imbalances between adolescent girls and their male partners, lack of education, and the failure of systems and institutions to protect their rights. We should do better as a society.
It still takes a village to raise a child. It should equally take a village to jealousy safeguard its girls and women from the never-ending nightmare visited on them by men of no conscience. Today, about 600 adolescent girls in sub-Saharan Africa get infected with HIV each year, with the disease being the leading killer of girls in the 15-24 years age bracket.
The world celebrates the International Day of the Girl Child every October.
Here at home, few girls enjoy the peace that comes with being young.
The most pressing question we have to ask ourselves is why we have failed to do justice by girls and women whom Chinese hero, Mao Zedong, said hold up half the sky?
The onus is squarely on parents, society and its leaders to create a conducive environment for girls to grow and prosper by promoting their voices, putting in place policies and legislations that protect them, and introducing tangible mechanisms that address the yawning gender inequality.
South Africa owes the girls that and more.
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