Sarawak ranks second highest in teenage pregnancy cases

*Sarawak ranks second highest in teenage pregnancy cases

     KUCHING: The State’s teenage pregnancy index this year from January until June, has recorded a total of 1264 cases compared to 2909 cases recorded in 2015.

     Sarawak still ranks the second highest in number of teenage pregnancies after Sabah in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, said Minister of Welfare, Women and Community Wellbeing, Datuk Hajah Fatimah Abdullah .

     “We want to decrease another 20 per cent or until the number of teenage pregnancies is below 100 cases. Thus, another aspect to be highlighted is on creating awareness of and carrying out the advocacy to prevent teenage pregnancy so that we could decrease the number,” she said during the closing ceremony for Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to OSTPC Workshop at Merdeka Palace Hotel, here yesterday.

     It is crucial for the OSTPC committee to come out with the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to ensure all matters of OSTPC committee in divisional and district level understand the purpose of OSTPC and on how to improve better services for teenage mothers, she added.

     “In OSTPC we are not only treating the symptom but we also want to go through on the root causes of the problem in order to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies.

     “We must understand that in OSTPC, we do not encourage marriage at a young age, the services will provide the necessary needs for the mother and child, to ensure no recurrence of cases and to monitor there is no case of abandoned babies and abortion,” she pointed out.

     Fatimah added that another worrying issue was on the increased number of unmarried teenage pregnancies.

      “According to the statistic by the Health Department, in 2014, the number of teenage pregnancy cases was 3401 cases of which 1201 cases involved teenagers who were not married while in 2015, the number of teenage pregnancies recorded was 2909 cases of which 1410 cases involved teenagers who were not married.

     “Up to June this year,  with 1264 cases recorded, 82 cases involved teenagers who were not married,” she pointed out.

     Meanwhile, Fatimah also stated that the ministry would ink a memorandum of understanding (MOU) and strategic partnership with the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) on cases of rape, violence against women and children, suicide, drug addiction, sexual abuse, domestic violence and teenage pregnancy in order to curb the issues and crimes that affect women and family.

     “Besides that, on suicide case, I have spoken to *Sarawak Crime Investigation Department (CID) chief, SAC Dev Kumar Sree Shunmugam, on allowing the ministry to look into the statistics on suicide case.

     “We would like to see whether there is any increase in trend and what is the motive of the suicide cases.   We would also look into the need of creating an agency or body to look into detail of these suicide cases,” she said

comments:

     Have they identified the root causes of the problem?  They have identify the problem and they have found the solution.  But they still have not identified the root causes of the problem.  This is the problem of the BN government.  Spending too much time studying the problem and finding the solution without identifying the causes.  Hence, ……………………..

     Are our Sarawak economic conditions and the education condition not directly or indirectly related to these problems?  I think Fatimah and her team not only should study the problematic groups but also should study the families who are exempt from these problems to find out the real causes of these problems. 

     Are domestic violence, suicide and the like not linked to the Sarawak economic conditions and education?

     Why has Sarawak bestowed with so much resources become abjectly or appallingly poor?    Why?????????????????????????