KHOPOTSO: As South Africa continues to experience a rise in the number of teenage parents, particularly, teenage mothers, the age of the mother who falls pregnant for the first time is getting even younger. Research suggests that more than a third of South African women have their first child before their 20th birthday. But on closer inspection the statistics show that the first pregnancy can occur as early as when a child is only 14 or even 12. An ongoing study, termed Birth to Twenty, is grappling with a question that much of society is asking: Why do so many teenage girls get pregnant?  

 

ELIZABETH TAOLE: They know that they might be pregnant. They know that they might get STIs or HIV’€¦ We do ask them questions in the questionnaire: Whether they did use condoms and did they know that if they didn’€™t, this is what might happen to them? And they acknowledge that they do know.          

 

KHOPOTSO: Elizabeth Taole, a researcher in the project. Participants in the study are aged 16 and have been part of the cohort since they were born in 1990 when the Birth to Twenty project started. Dubbed Mandela’€™s Children and selected from around the Johannesburg region, they have been tracked to research the growth, health, wellbeing and educational progress of urban children. Now that the cohort has turned 16, the focus includes such issues as sexual and reproductive behaviour.

 

ELIZABETH TAOLE: We’€™ve got about 50 cases at the moment’€¦ We’€™ve got about 46 that have actually had the babies and then, two cases that are pregnant and then, we’€™ve got two boys who’€™ve admitted to being fathers in the study.  

 

KHOPOTSO: The study involves over 2 000 adolescents. The 48 teenage mothers and expectant girls come from a total of 1100 girls. What pushes them into early pregnancy?    

 

ELIZABETH TAOLE: For most of them it’€™s a matter of peer pressure: Every one of my friends has a boyfriend. Every one of my friends does this. So, it automatically becomes what I’€™m going to do in this relationship’€¦ So, whatever comes your way, you just feel that this is what it entails, therefore, I’€™m going to have to follow the rules’€¦ But I suppose because they are dating older men’€¦ then it becomes a situation whereby they feel that because they’€™ve been with this person for so long then, they might as well do this’€¦ And because the guys are older they are able to win the negotiation in terms of not using the condoms.  

 

KHOPOTSO: Taole says the mean age of the men who would impregnate the Birth to Twenty girls is 23. Malose Langa, a psychologist and researcher with Wits University, says there is a deluge of information for safe behaviour for teen girls. However, he goes on to say that the issues are not very simple.

 

MALOSE LANGA: The messages don’€™t touch on issues around self-esteem, self-confidence, identity, self-concept’€¦ We talk about peer pressure. Why are other kids more susceptible to peer pressure, as compared to others? Those are issues that we need to start asking ourselves. The issues are around, let me say, this young person comes from a poor family background where in most cases you find that there is a single parent’€¦ and I’€™m not saying only children with single mothers are susceptible to teenage pregnancy. But if you were to look in terms of percentages, you would see that the majority of them are coming from such family backgrounds. And you realise that this child was, in a way, not nurtured and made to feel loved and all that. When they enter into adolescence they seek that love and nurturing in their friends… And later on, they would seek that in a father figure, a sugar daddy. And in that it provides that emotional security that one has never had.                  

 

KHOPOTSO: It is true that most of the girls in the Birth to Twenty study come from families led by single women. And some feel like they haven’€™t done a good job raising their kids.  

 

ELIZABETH TAOLE: The whole experience of them at the time having had children and then, going through the experience again with their own children, brings back a lot of memories.

 

KHOPOTSO: Psychologist, Malose Langa acknowledges that it is the responsibility of parents to ensure that their children grow up to make responsible decisions. He adds, however, that the responsibility of raising a child lies with much more than the family within which they are born.

 

MALOSE LANGA: If the family is then failing, what are we doing at the school level’€¦ because families are struggling with so many issues’€¦? And as a result parents are over-stretched’€¦ As a society we need to do something. We acknowledge that there is something wrong with the family system’€¦ So, it’€™s a matter of how do you then develop resisting skills ‘€“ the ability to say, ‘€˜no, I can’€™t do this’€™, without feeling ‘€˜am I going to be ostracised’€™?