We must start asking the difficult questions. Why are women and young girls from disadvantaged backgrounds so quick to fall pregnant, not just once, but many times?
Back home, the Eastern Cape is plagued by extreme poverty and yet the rate at which women are continuously pregnant is just horrific.
Walk through the poorest informal settlements and the scenes are no different: women and young girls who are barely adults are already mothers to three or four children.
And in many households, there are seven or more people, with the majority, if not all, unemployed - not by choice.
But there's no proper support system and absent fathers, leaving the burden to fall on the family. For the lucky ones, boyfriends rely on sporadic odd jobs to scrape by.
This is not just an economic crisis; but a cycle of brokenness, trauma and sometimes neglect, recycled by poor judgment and actions.
This story is from the October 11, 2024 edition of The Citizen.
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This story is from the October 11, 2024 edition of The Citizen.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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