Children should not be let become mothers because they are children and they cannot play the role of mothers due to their biologically underdeveloped status. Only young adult women can become mothers. Letting children become mothers is a crime. Even Mother Nature rejects it and no kittens, puppies, cubs, chicks, calfs, fawns etc become mothers. Only adult animals and birds give birth. This week we discuss preventing Sri Lankan children becoming mothers.
Last week the Supreme Court ordered immediate medical termination of the 30 week pregnancy of a 14-year-old rape survivor. It also set aside a Bombay High Court order, which declined to allow medical termination of the girl’s pregnancy ruling that every hour was crucial for the girl.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud ordered Sion Hospital in Mumbai to constitute a team to conduct the medical termination of the pregnancy. The bench ordered the hospital to ensure that the minor was safely taken to the medical facility and that the Maharashtra Government had agreed to bear the expenses of the procedure.
She was allowed to have a late abortion after lawyers said carrying the baby to full term would cause her trauma and agony. The girl is 32 weeks pregnant, well beyond India’s 20-week legal limit after which terminations are only allowed where there is a danger to the life of the mother or the baby.
Some Indian media reported that one of her father’s colleagues has been arrested on charges of raping her. The parents immediately approached the Supreme Court and also lodged a Police complaint, the media said. “It has been emotionally draining for the girl’s parents as their child is pregnant and they are unable to cope up with this fact,” the child’s lawyer told foreign media ahead of the verdict.
When it comes to Sri Lanka, the situation is extremely pathetic and the situation needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Some 168 cases of child sexual abuse have been reported in the month of September last year (2023) while 22 girls under the age of 16 have become pregnant, a Parliamentary Committee revealed. Maybe by the end of last year, this number exceeded at least 175 (child sexual abuse cases) and 25 (child pregnancies). It is high time Sri Lankan law makers think about this grave situation and amend existing laws and introduce new laws.
Teenage pregnancy is when a woman under 20 gets pregnant. It usually refers to teens between the ages of 15-19. But it can include girls as young as 10. It’s also called teen pregnancy or adolescent pregnancy. The most affected group is children bellow the age of 13.
According to 2019 statistics, Afghanistan had the highest percentage of teenage pregnancies (12%) while Bangladesh 8.2%, India 7.9%, Nepal 6.0%, Pakistan 4.4% and Maldives 0.7%. Sri Lanka’s percentage was 4.4%. The countries with the lowest teenage pregnancies in 2018 were, South Korea (0.1%), Denmark (0.3%), Singapore (0.3%), Switzerland (0.3%), Netherlands (0.3%), Japan (0.4%) and Norway (0.4%). When considering the above statistics, we can very clearly see that Sri Lanka has a long way to go.
When observing the situation that exists in Sri Lanka, it is obvious that most of the teenage pregnancies are from low income groups. The rich can afford it because rich people can spend money and get justice done for their pregnant children here in Sri Lanka illegally or abroad legally. Then the most affected group is poor Sri Lankan children bellow the age of 13. They often get raped by their own family members and outsiders due to their unsafe home environments. According to some recent media reports some of them were sold to men and employed as prostitutes by their own mothers for money. A lot of step fathers an paramour of the mother rape children.
Pregnant child mothers are at higher risk to get mental health problems such as depression, intense stress and pressure to become a mother. They are faced with a lack of support from family and community that will lead to depression, making wrong decisions and abusing drugs.Poverty, malnutrition, complications of pregnancy, and emotional problems such as depression, drug, and alcohol use, are all risks for the `child mother’. Children are also at greater risk of physical, cognitive, and emotional problems.
Adolescent mothers (aged 10–19 years) face higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis and systemic infections than women aged 20–24 years, and babies of adolescent mothers face higher risks of low birth weight, preterm birth and severe neonatal condition.
There are certain things that all Sri Lankan adults, especially lawmakers, decision-makers, clergy belonging to all religions need to understand. Children cannot become mothers just because they are children. Even Mother Nature does not accept it. No religion on earth says children should become mothers. Children have all rights to be children and NOT mothers. Therefore no one can force them to become mothers.
It is more interesting to study what individuals and groups who protest against making abortion legal for child mothers. Whenever their family members (a girl child) face a similar situation, they contact a Consultant and get an abortion done illegally taking the risk and spending lakhs of rupees or take the pregnant child to a foreign country and get the abortion done legally and safely. After that they come to Sri Lanka and protest against legalising abortion for child mothers of poor families. The most common issue that they drag into the discussion is using the same law by all women to get rid of unwanted pregnancies. Most who oppose legalising abortion are men and they never give birth to children. The tools they use to push their opposition forward are religions and culture. But it is high time Sri Lankan lawmakers stop giving into their pressures and ensure the safety and well-being of all Sri Lankan children.
It is possible for a pregnant child to commit suicide at any time due to the mental pressure. Therefore the pregnancy put her life at risk. Psychologists can detect it early. The existing law needs to be amended or a new law needs to be introduced enabling them to recommend legal abortion because it puts the `child mother’s life at risk.
The lawmakers of this country need to understand that the existing laws need to be amended and new laws need to be brought in to save the lives of hundreds of children below the ages of 12 or 13. Nowadays usually the age of attaining puberty for female children has come down to nine or ten years with the gradual change of genetic factors and environmental factors that had been changed with the time being during the past several decades. Therefore it is possible for even a nine or ten years old child to get pregnant if she has already attained puberty. This is why we need to be concerned about this issue.
It is the sole responsibility of lawmakers of this country to ensure the safety and well-being of all girl children of Sri Lanka. They cannot just watch how a nine or ten years old girls’ precious lives get destroyed. People cast their vote and send them into the Parliament in order to represent them because people want them to enact laws to protect them and especially their children. The lawmakers should listen to the people and not to a handful of individuals.
Those Little kids have no idea about what is happening with their bodies and actually what was done to them by a two legged devil. Therefore all female schoolchildren should be taught about the tablets that can be purchased from a pharmacy and how to use them if someone rapes them. If the schools do not do it, the parents can do it. The religions and cultures did not protect them so far and that is why there are many `child mothers’ in the country by now.
What is required here is becoming genuine human beings before becoming mothers, fathers, law makers, clergy and especially individuals who protest against relieving child mothers. Only another human being is capable of understanding the agony of a child who is pregnant and does not know what is wrong with her little tummy. What if she learns that she will be forced to stay with a big tummy for eight or nine long months and then deliver an infant and she needs to breastfeed it ? She is still fed with milk every morning and evening by her mother.
We understand things only we undergo through the same experience by ourselves and usually people do not understand the agony of another human being only by seeing, hearing etc. We can have a 100 percent understanding only if we undergo the same experience by ourselves. Only then we will not like to see another go through our own bitter experience. But this cannot delay the justice for the victims and protection for the female children against rape and pregnancy.
