File photo for illustration purposes
KUCHING (Feb 3): Sexual education should start at home from young with equal focus on both boys and girls in order to protect themselves and prevent teenage pregnancies, said Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.
Fatimah, who is the Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister said parents need to be more proactive and aware of sexuality issues among children by being open and approachable to their children when it comes to questions about sex, contraception and intimacy.
Aside from that, the community needs to reduce its stigmatisation of unwed mothers via education and awareness, providing access to sexual and reproductive health services for teens who have been identified as sexually active and comprehensive sexual education which could help educate teenagers about sexually related problems.
In order to tackle teenage pregnancy issue in the state, her ministry and the Department of Health Sarawak has set up the One Stop Teenage Pregnancy Committee (OSTPC) in 2014, which includes conducting targeted programmes and activities to reduce teenage pregnancies, pregnancies outside marriage and baby dumping through the Social Development Council.
“Since the setting up of the OSTPC at the state and divisional levels, we have seen a drop or declining trend in teenage pregnancies in Sarawak (2017 – 2,130 cases; 2018 – 2,153 cases; 2019 – 1,967 cases). Since then, there has been no significant increase in baby dumping cases too. From 2015 to 2021, there were 39 cases (2015 – 4 cases; 2016 – 10 cases; 2017 – 4 cases; 2018 – 10 cases; 2019 – 5 cases; 2020 – 5 cases; 2021 – 1 case),” she said in a statement today.
Since 2016, the Ministry conducted 61 runs of an integrated and holistic program named, Sexual Education Awareness and Advocacy and since then, there has been a significant decrease in the number of cases of school-pregnant teenagers from 160 cases in 2015 to 64 cases in 2019 (60 per cent), she said.
“The Ministry is also aware of teenage pregnancy cases amongst school dropouts. To address this concern, the Ministry conducted 24 runs of Social Development Dialogue that includes modules on the safety of children, effects of teenage pregnancy and early marriage, risky behaviours leading to unwanted pregnancy, and sexual crimes against women and children.”
Besides that, the Ministry is developing an integrated social intervention directory on children below 18-years-old who did not attend school or school dropouts to address targeted issues faced by them in the community, she said.
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