Fatimah highlights a point during the press conference.
KUCHING (Nov 2): Sarawak is well on its way towards hitting the target of a 10 per cent decline in teenage pregnancy cases this year, from the total number of 2,099 cases recorded last year.
Minister for Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah said in order to realise this goal, the number of cases recorded between January and September this year should be 1,416 or less.
“From January to September this year, Sarawak recorded a total of 1,269 teenage pregnancy cases – it appears that we are close to achieving the target,” she said in a press conference held at her office in Bangunan Baitulmakmur 2 in Petra Jaya here yesterday.
She also said the data on teenage pregnancy cases in Sarawak had shown a slight declining trend since 2014.
“However, the number went up in 2018 and 2020, and this year, it recorded a drop.”
Sarawak recorded a total of 3,401 teenage pregnancy cases in 2014 upon the setting-up of the One Stop Teenage Pregnancy Centre (OSTPC).
In 2015, the cases went down to 2,909, followed by 2,481 cases in 2016, 2,130 cases in 2017, 2,153 cases in 2018, 1,967 cases in 2019, 2,099 cases last year, and 1,269 cases recorded between January and September this year.
Fatimah said from this year’s January-September total figure, 64 per cent of the cases involved those who were unmarried.
Moreover, she said Bintulu registered the highest percentage of unmarried pregnant teenagers at 79.1 per cent, followed by Sibu with 73.8 per cent, and Miri with 71.6 per cent.
In this aspect, the minister said those who were unmarried might face issues with official documentation for their newborn babies as well as a lack of financial support.
“For these teenagers, we want them to go back to school and if they cannot do this, we hope that they could enrol for vocational training so that they would have better employment prospects.”
Fatimah said based on age, 64.5 per cent of the 1,269 cases recorded between January and September this year involved those aged 18 and 19, followed by 29.3 per cent consisting of those aged 16 to 17, and the remaining 6.2 per cent comprising those aged 10 to 15.
“From the total figure, 35.5 per cent of them are still school-going children aged 10 to 17,” he said.
Adding on, Fatimah said 21 per cent of the whole 1,269 cases had completed their secondary school studies, while 68 per cent dropped out from school before their pregnancy, three per cent dropped out after pregnancy, and one per cent never attended school.
from Borneo Post Online https://bit.ly/3bMMOKp
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