Committee Hears Of Abuse Of Teenage Mothers
Home director Lynne Roche said they would make sure that a safety network was provided when the teenage girls returned to their communities.
Pregnant teenagers under the care of Homes of Hope are usually victims of sexual abuse and incest.
This was revealed yesterday by the Home’s Director, Lynne Roche while making submissions on the Adoption Bill 2016 before the Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights in Parliament.
“The youngest mother who has been through the service is a 12 year old girl,” she said.
Ms Roche said for the last 20 years they had supported around 500 mothers both through indirect care and their community programme was directly involved with the protection of the exploitation of young children.
She said the Home conducted training programmes like a basic skills programme for young mothers while their children were at the nursery.
Ms Roche said young mothers who dropped out of primary school would go through remedial classes to improve their numeracy and literacy skills.
She said that the primary contributor to teenage pregnancy was incest or sexual abuse as most were young girls from dysfunctional families and most of their targeted areas were informal settlements.
Ms Roche said informal settlements had the high risks of social issues like drug abuses, family issues and school drop outs.
She said part of their work was to address these issues through counselling, if the girls were over eighteen they made sure they support either through maintenance or a Domestic Violence Restraining Order was in place for their safety.
She said there are currently 13 young mothers and over 50 children from all districts around the country under their care at the home
Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights Chairman, Ashneel Sudhakar praised the Home for their work.
He said they had done a tremendous work for Fiji by providing services to young teenage girls who had lost hope in life also children who had been left out in the society due to family issues, sexual abuse and incest.
Edited by Rusiate Mataika
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