South African children aged between 10 and 14 years old are having unprotected sex and are in the process contracting sexually transmitted infections such as syphilis. They are also falling pregnant and undergoing abortions.
A specialist nurse in the Cape Town Metro has revealed that in just one year she performed more than 600 abortions among teenagers.
It has also emerged that the number of pregnant teenagers with syphilis is rising at an alarming rate with primary healthcare facilities nationally recording up to 24 births of children with congenital syphilis in just three months.
These startling figures were revealed on Thursday during a webinar by the Rural Health Advocacy Programme (RHAP) to launch its policy brief titled Rural Realities: Navigating Early Pregnancy in Vulnerable Communities.
Judiac Ranape, a comprehensive health nurse trainer with the Department of Health and an abortion services provider, said congenital syphilis is the biggest challenge in primary healthcare facilities.
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, congenital syphilis is a severe, disabling and often life-threatening infection seen in infants.
Ranape also revealed shocking figures that between April 2023 and February this year, she alone performed 64 abortions on girls aged 10-14. In the 15-19 age group, Ranape said she performed 612 abortions. This means Ranape alone performed 676 abortions on teenagers in the City of Cape Town Metro.
The total number of abortions performed on girls aged 10 to 19 in the Cape Town Metro in the past financial year totals 6 441.
“Teenagers are having sexual intercourse without condoms, and we’ve been having notifications since the beginning of January that every other month we have nine to 12 teenagers who are giving birth to children who have congenital syphilis,” she said.
Ranape, the former chairperson of the Sexual, Reproductive Justice Coalition, said because adolescents and teenagers did not seek help in time when they fell pregnant, they did not get treatment in time to ensure that they did not pass syphilis to their unborn children.
She said gender-based violence was the major contributing factor to early pregnancies, compounding the challenges already faced by girls.
“Just in the 2023/24 financial year, I have had to perform numerous abortions on girls as young as 10 that were raped,” she said.
Ranape said not all the cases that came before her were reported to the police.
“As healthcare providers we are required by law to report under-age pregnancies to the police, the Department of Social Development and the National Prosecuting Authority.
“In one case, a 10-year-old came with her mother to get an abortion. The mother begged me not to report the matter because the man involved pays rent for the family and buys them food,” she said.
The purpose of the RHAP policy brief, presented junior researcher Celene Coleman, was to understand the reasons why early pregnancies occur to assist in developing strategies for prevention services tailored to the needs of teenagers. It also highlighted the role of socio-cultural factors in unwanted and unintended early pregnancies to explore ways to provide social protection to adolescent girls, pregnancy and birth rates in adolescents.
Ranape said the causes of teenage pregnancy included gender-based violence and transactional sex, a lack of sexual and reproductive health education, misinformation and lack of access to reproductive health rights and limited access to contraception and healthcare services.
“Family dynamics also play a role. Care and supervision are often diffused, leading to a less direct oversight of teenagers,” she said, adding that in rural areas the access to school also meant that sometimes girls had to travel long distances or stay in another village away from family to access high schooling.
