Teenage Pregnancies Soar as Floods Uproot More Families in Kasese district

By Diana Taremwa Karakire

Kasese District-Uganda

Kasese district in Western Uganda, has in recent times gained notoriety for its deadly floods blamed on severe weather events in the region but there is also a new phenomenon, the once copper-rich district has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the country, with 40% of girls pregnant by the age of 18 as of 2022, and climate change has become one of the drivers of teen pregnancies.

Rehema Alema Namale uses a megaphone to summon teenage mothers in Muhokya camp -for people displaced by flooding in Kasese district.Image by Diana Taremwa Karakire

On a hot and humid day in Muhokya internally displaced people’s camp, located about 10 km south of Kasese, young teenage mothers gather in a ram-shackled classroom, they have been summoned by the chairperson incharge of the settlement via  a megaphone.

One by one, they make their way out of makeshift houses made of mud and tattered tarpaulins. In the tiny room, 12- to 16-year-old mothers breastfeed their babies, while others are heavily pregnant.

“Most of the teenagers here often fall pregnant due to lack of sex education,” says Rehema Alema Namale, who was appointed chairperson of the camp.

I count, there roughly 15 teenage mothers, demonstrating how crises can escalate. After being uprooted from the safety of their homes by catastrophic floods brought on by River Nyamwamba in 2020, they were pushed into a settlement where they have fallen victim to child-to-child sex, rape, child marriage and prostitution.

16 year old Triphen Muhindo is sprawled out on a mat with her one year-old baby, Biira, sited on her lap. Biira is crying and tugging at her mother’s blouse. In response, Muhindo clicks her tongue. She looks tired. Muhindo is a primary five school dropout. She lives with her parents and got pregnant while in the camp.

16 year old Triphen Muhindo and her baby – Muhokya Camp- Kasese district

“I needed basic needs like clothes and pads.My parents couldn’t provide them. So I decided to get a boyfriend and ended up pregnant,” said Muhindo, who was prematurely plunged into the world of adults.

For 15 year old Mary Kabubo, life has never been the same ever since she discovered she was pregnant.She misses school; she used to study at Bulembeya Secondary school, which was destroyed by floods. She was working at a restaurant in Kasese town where a man approached her and asked her to be his girlfriend.

15 year old Mary Kabubo, life has never been the same ever since she discovered she was pregnant.She misses school

“I was happy. I thought my fortunes had turned. He always gave me money that I used to buy food for my four younger siblings who were always at home hungry,” said Kabubo. However, once he discovered that she was pregnant, he vanished. Now, she spends her days hiding inside their makeshift home.

 Winnie Masika, now 16, gave into the advances of a man she met in the market who offered her Ugx 100,000. She saw a chance to get the same shoes her friends were wearing. “I didn’t know I could get pregnant from having sexual intercourse,” she said, breast-feeding seven-month-old Eliza. When Masika fell pregnant, she was flabbergasted. 

 Winnie Masika , now 16, gave into the advances of a man she met in the market who offered her Ugx 100,000

The camp has only one midwife who is unavailable most of the time. Pregnant mothers in most cases give birth from from inside the houses which are barely hygienic.

Just next to the camp is a Muhokya health center three but the teenage mothers say that nurses at the hospital refuse to attend to them.

Muhokya Heath Centre three. Teenage mothers say that nurses at the hospital refuse to attend to them

“They treat us like outsiders and don’t want to attend to us. Sometimes they ask for past medical records that we lost during the floods or money that we don’t have,” said Masika.

Conditions in Muhokya camp are notoriously poor. Basic sanitation facilities, such as hand washing facilities and toilets, are lacking, which contributes to the risk of disease spreading.

Namale says that parents are concerned about the increase in teenage pregnancies in the camp.

“Life here is hard especially raising girls in this condition. We can’t stay home and protect them. We shall go hungry!”

Makeshift houses made of mud and tattered tarpaulins dot the area-Muhokya camp

For work, most of the camp denizens travel into Kasese to do casual labor while others work as farm hands on gardens.

 “We cannot till the land here, it’s not ours.We depend on donations from government and well wishers, sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t,” said Namale.

For Kasese district whose teenage pregnancy rates are among the highest in the country, climate related disasters have become another significant driving factor. The Uganda Demographic and Health survey 2022,indicates that the district still has high numbers of pregnant young girls below the age of 18 years, with over 7,000 teenage pregnancies. Among the causes cited include; lack of sex education, school dropout, child marriages and inadequate access to sexual reproductive services tailored for young people.

 Teenage childbearing is higher in rural areas (25%) than in urban areas (21%).Adolescents engage in sex due to poverty, lack of education, domestic violence and peer pressure.

Faizo Muhindo, the Kasese District Probation and Social Welfare Officer, sympathizes with Namale and the other women and girls at Muhokya camp, but he says that the district lacks resources to cater to all of their needs.

“Government through the office of the prime minister has been planning to compensate them by buying for them land for relocation, but I don’t know why this is taking long,” he said.

For more than three years, the people in Muhokya camp have been waiting for a resettlement package promised by various government officials. Until the government allocates resources to compensate and resettle them, there’s not much they can do but wait.

Climate change is a reality in Uganda.Droughts, extreme heat, flooding, landslides and increased exposure to disease are all linked to climate change. Data from the Uganda Meteorological Department indicates that since the 1960s, average temperatures have increased by about 1.3° Celsius a phenomenon that has caused glaciers on the Rwenzori ranges -also known as the mountains of the moon to melt and recede. UNESCO says that a third of the 50 World Heritage sites that contain glaciers, including the Rwenzoris, will disappear by 2050 no matter what actions are taken to slow global warming.

River Nyamwamba has been carrying more water downstream wreaking havoc on communities in the lowlands.

As the air that hangs above the Rwenzori ranges gets warmer, melting glaciers have led to overflow and flooding of major rivers in Kasese particulary River Nyamwamba which emerges from the mountains on it’s way to L.George in the Albertine rift. In recent times, Nyamwamba has been carrying more water downstream wreaking havoc on communities in the lowlands.Several lives have been lost ,gardens and homes destroyed. In may the river burst its banks twice. This situation is exacerbated by the degradation of fragile ecosystems through deforestation and illicit sand mining, on mountain slopes and riverbanks.

The 2020 floods that uprooted Namale and her neighbors were the worst on record, according to a 2022 Kasese district disaster report. These affected 9,916 households, 48947 people, with about 80% being children and major infrastructure notably, Kilembe Mines hospital.

Kilembe Mines Hospital has not been operational ever since it was affected by floods in 2020

For Namale, who once lived in Nyamwamba division-at the foot of Mt. Rwenzori, memories of what happened are still fresh. Her once towering 4 bed roomed house was destroyed by the floods, shattering her dreams of sheltering her 9 children. She now owes a community bank around 5million Uganda shillings which she had borrowed to set up the house. She frowns her face as she recounts events leading up to the disaster.

The May 2020 Nyamwamba floods were the worst on record affecting around 9,916 households and 48947 people.

 “We woke up to people screaming loudly and running everywhere. Too much water carrying huge stones was gushing from the mountains,” she recalls. “We grabbed a few belongings and started running. It’s a miracle that we survived.”

Worries of more destruction and deaths from floods and landslides have prompted government to formulate a relocation plan to move and resettle communities from at-risk mountainous areas of Mt Rwenzori, however implementation of the plan  remains slow due to resource constraints.

Other interventions have included desilting and restoration of the river Nyamwamba catchment to contain flooding.Desilting is a type of dredging activity that focuses on removing sediment, silt, and debris from the bottom of water bodies like rivers to make them deeper and less prone to overflowing.Two years ago,government secured funding from the World Bank to desilt 5.4 kilometers of the critical catchment areas of the river.

Several lives were lost and property destroyed in Nyamwamba division -Kasese district

According to United Nations Population Fund Uganda,women and girls are among the worst affected during climate-induced disasters .These often disrupt education and access to health services increasing unplanned pregnancies .lack of education and health services means that girls understanding of their own sexual and reproductive health is also limited. In cases where people are displaced forced into camps, sexual violence,child marriages and other harmful practices also tend to rise.

Uganda’s Climate change Act 2021 is gender sensitive. It advocates for gender mainstreaming in climate change adaptation and mitigation programmes but implementation remains a challenge as the gender-ed effects of climate disasters are often disregarded during response and recovery.

“These environment disasters affect everybody but there are subgroups that need special attention,” said Irene Twongeirwe technical lead -climate at Women for Green Economies. “Any kind of response has to prioritize women and girls sexual and reproductive health needs”

The subject of climate change and how to assist victims of climate change through the Loss and Damage fund was a dominant topic at the COP28 Climate Conference in Dubai last year. Beatrice Anywar, Uganda’s environment minister noted that climate change is now the main driver of human displacement across East and the horn of Africa, and urged developed countries to step up funding for displacement projects.

“We must address the climate-induced migrations, especially among poor nations like Uganda,” she said. “As a country with an open refugee policy, it’s a shame that we don’t have enough funds to look after our own people”

The World Bank projects that 11 percent of the population could move within Uganda because of slow onset climate factors, without concrete climate and development action by 2050.

Latest data from the International Organisation for Migration Uganda shows that as of March 2024, 426 people representing 91 households have been internally displaced by climate induced disasters including heavy storms/hailstorms and floods.Source:IOM

“Government should integrate migration issues into policies and action plans on climate change at the national and local levels ,” said Edwin Mumbere, Director at Center for Citizens Conserving Environment & Management, a local non-profit in Kasese that is supporting communities living on mountain slopes to adopt sustainable farming practices. “International support can also help offset the financial burden of loss and damage experienced by communities in Kasese”