Ugandan lawmakers have rejected a government scheme to allow 15-year-old girls to access birth control pills in a bid to decrease the high levels of pregnancy.
Thomas Tayebwa, the Deputy Speaker had tagged the idea ‘devilish’, saying that it would “legalize [the] defilement” of [young] girls.
But a senior health ministry official had a differing opinion, saying that the “stigma” around young people using contraceptives should end.
According to a survey, almost a quarter of 15- to 19-year-old girls in Uganda are either pregnant or are already mothers.
This statistics had skyrocketed during the Covid lockdown when schools were closed down for almost two years.
During a highly charged parliamentary debate on Tuesday, October 10, MP Lucy Akello had queried whether the age of consent was being lowered from the current 18 years to 15 years.
The MP had further described the proposal to offer contraceptives to 15-year-old girls as “scary” and uncalled for.
In her response to the debate, Primary Healthcare Minister, Margaret Muhanga had commented that the proposal had not been approved by the government and had been made by a senior medical officer, Dr Charles Olaro.
Muhanga had asked if it was better for a child to get pregnant and then go on to die while birthing the child. She had also added that there were a lot of cases of teenage pregnancies in the country.
Uganda is a deeply religious nation, a group of religious leaders had also opposed the proposal, stating that teenagers would be better off just abstaining from sex.
