Cultural leaders attend a forum on curbing teenage pregnancy
Our Reporter
In a bid to fight teenage pregnancies, Nebbi district leaders have appealed to Cultural institutions in the district to join in the fight against the vice.
While speaking during the annual traditional leader’s dialogue forum on Sexual Reproduction Health Education organized by Trailblazers Mentoring Foundation (TMF) on Tuesday at Leosim conference hall, the vice chairperson Nebbi district Local Government Geoffrey Okello revealed that there is need to engage cultural leaders in the fight against teenage pregnancy which has become a challenge in our district.
He said as government, they recognize that the cultural leaders have the power to positively influence the attitude and behavioral change of the society towards the elimination of negative cultural norms towards early and forceful child marriage of the girl child.
“In most time our cultural leaders have failed to speak out on teenage pregnancy and child marriage mainly because some of them are perpetrators of these acts” Okello said.
The Senior Assistant Secretary Nebbi District Local government Mr. Gilbert Onencan also during the same meeting said child marriage and teenage pregnancy has become a normal with most of the cultural leaders failing to take their full mandate to raise awareness in the fight against teenage pregnancies in their chiefdom.
“we believe, there is need for a collaboration effort by working jointly with the cultural institution as change agents in stopping the increasing cases of teenage pregnancies among the adolescent girls who are the next mothers of this nation” Mr Onenchan said.
The Nebbi district Education Officer Lemiza Charles confirmed that with the opening of schools recently, the return of the pupils more especially for the girl child has tremendously dropped a clear indication that most of the girls who have failed to report back are either pregnant or have been married off by their parents.
The program manager Kura Matira Alur Kingdom Kasamba Jerry noted that although a number of measures have been put in place, teenage pregnancy is still a challenge
“We are empowering the chiefs to get involve through sensitizing the community and I am glad that this has started and we hope for the best results” he said.
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