GIVE CHILDREN CONDOMS AND CONTRACEPTIVES -NAC
“Lower the Age of Consent to between 12 to 16 years”
Lusaka-23rd October 2020
The National Aids Council (NAC)has called for government to implement legal and regulatory amendments to lower the age of consent.
Director of Programmes, Dr. John Mwale, said reproductive health services should be given to children and adolescents aged between 12 years to 16 years.
He said children and adolescents even as young as 10 years of age must be given access to reproductive health services without parental consent.
Reproductive health services include; access and prevention of abortions, the management of the consequences of abortions, providing family planning and counseling, pre-natal care, safe delivery and post-natal care, prevention and appropriate treatment of infertility, and the treatment of reproductive tracts.
Dr. Mwale said government health facilities should not turn away children seeking reproductive health services without parental consent.
“What we are saying is we can have young people access these services without necessarily getting parental consent because right now, we have also noted that in terms of new infections, they have gone up, HIV new infections have gone up every year and in 2019.”
“As National Aids Council, we are reporting higher figures: 51,000 new infections and when you look at the age brackets that are actually more affected, its the young people whom we are not providing these services.” He said.
“Young people should actually be free to access these services including those aged 12, 13, 14 and 15 years” he said.
“Now the age of consent in Zambia is at 16 years, this means that if you are 16 years of age and below, you cannot access most services without parental consent”. He said
“If you are below the age of 16 and you want to access condoms, or have an HIV test and many other services, you are supposed to go with your parents or guardian. If you as a young person you do a self-test and you link yourself to care, it would require parental consent. So young people are shunning these services.” He said.
He said the Demographic Surveys of 2007 and 2018 showed that teen pregnancies had risen from 27% to 29%.
He said Ministry of Education statistics showed that about 16,000 teenagers fall out of school because of pregnancies, and could be attributed to guidelines such as the Age of Consent.
However the Church, parents and Traditional Authorities have spoken against Sexual Reproductive Health and Services (SRH&R) and Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE) as key programmes sexualising children and promoting the use of contraceptives and abortions among children and adolescents.
They also condemned the two programmes for actively excluding parents in the provision of sexual information and reproductive health services as they are designed as rights-based programmes.
They have called for the promoters of the two programmes to instead, invest in existing and effective programmes encouraging sexual abstinence among children and adolescents, and strengthening traditional, family and religious values that build moral responsibilities in young people than promoting harmful practices.
The Church has stated that promoters have falsely presented the two programmes as solution to the rise in teen pregnancies and STDs, sexual abuse, and child marriages.