Photos: YouTube Screenshots
BUGHENDERA, Uganda — In this East African country, many young women’s dreams of earning a university degree and pursuing a career are being shattered because they can’t access the contraceptives they need to avoid getting pregnant before they are ready for that major life challenge. They are also dying at high rates while pregnant or from giving birth, especially in rural areas. The situation is emblematic of a broader problem affecting the futures of young women globally, especially in developing countries.
“If the services were closer to me, I would have accessed them, and I wouldn’t have had children at my age,” Jackline Kabugho, 19, said in an interview, in rural Uganda. “I might have become a schoolteacher, as that was my dream.”
Health experts emphasize that the low availability of family planning services in developing countries — and even richer ones — plays a major role in influencing fertility rates and population growth, leaving young women and adolescents out on a limb in not only obtaining an advanced education degree but also affecting their health and well-being.
Research released in July 2022 by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which focuses on women’s sexual and reproductive health rights, revealed that nearly a third of women in developing countries initiate childbearing at age 19 or younger, and almost half of the first births by adolescents occur among girls aged 17 or under. Despite an overall decrease in fertility rates between 2015 and 2019 globally, women who began childbearing in adolescence averaged almost five births by the time they reached 40.
The UNFPA report highlights the crucial effects of gender-based and income inequalities in driving teen pregnancies, resulting in increased child marriages, limited education, restricted career goals and inadequate health care and sex education. These factors impinge on a country’s ability to flourish and compete in the global economy.
In Uganda, with a population of nearly 50 million, a staggering one-quarter of teenage girls aged 15 to 19 have begun childbearing. Rural areas are particularly affected by the high rate due to limited resources.
