- The lives of girls in slum areas have not improved.
- They still drop out of schools and get pregnant at tender age.
- The civil societies call for spaces where teenage mothers can live their children to go for work and school.
Image: ALICE LUBWAMA
Civil society organizations that empower women and girls have appealed to government to put in place policies that will ensure that teenage mothers especially those from the slums have spaces where they can live their children and continue with school after giving birth.
While interacting with teenage mothers in katanga a slum area in Harriet Karen Mukajambo from the Global learning for sustainability said that they went to kantanga to find out whether the girls and young women in these places even know such a day when the world is celebrating the mile stones that gender equality has created in communities.
Mukajambo however say the lives of girls has not improved when you look at the conditions that they live in ,girls are still dropping out of school and getting pregnant at the tender age and this cannot help to achieve gender equality.
She said that although women activists have advocated for gender responsive laws to empower the most vulnerable girls and young women, they still experience gender violence and contracting HIV at a tender age, calling for their protection.
`We need policies that can ensure that girls continue with school, we need to see girls and young women economically empowered because most of them are left out to fend for themselves, it’s so challenge to see girls at tender age care taking their homes. Mukajambo noted
The woman councilor representing Wandegeya at kaweempe division urban council Kemugisha Sharon also encouraged these teenage mothers in Katanga area not lose hope but continue pursuing their dreams, saying that she is a living testimony who gave birth when still young but she didn't give up on her dreams of being a leader.
Kemigisha who now owns an organization called Give Hope to girls and women say the only thing that has kept her pushing on is accepting that she made a mistake and stopped judging herself and accepted her responsibility to look after her children despite the fact that the father abandoned his responsibility as a man.
She says accepting is the best way of healing and to achieve your dreams, advising young mothers not to continue messing up but keep health by not contracting diseases like HIV if there to achieve their dreams.
``If you don’t break this chain that means you’re going to carry on the biasness to your kids and they will keep on doing the same mistakes that were made by their mothers.
Kemigisha also called on civil societies, policy makers and fellow leaders to engage the teenage mothers so that they can know their challenges as young mothers and find a way to help them.
`` As leader you can find a way of motivating them and looking for platforms to help them because some of them are school dropouts.’’ Kemigisha said
She has promised to use her platforms to look for scholarships for those who are still willing to go back to school.
Kemigisha say she has seen teenage mothers who had a chance of going back to school and have made it.