The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Thomas Tayebwa, has asked government to withdraw a proposed plan by the Ministry of Health to permit young girls as young as 15 years old to access contraceptives, including condoms, implants, birth control pills, and other family planning methods.
Tayebwa, who chaired the parliamentary session on Tuesday, vehemently opposed the idea, expressing his belief that endorsing birth control for teenagers in a predominantly God-fearing country like Uganda would be akin to sanctioning sexual violence.
He went on to say that such a policy would be tantamount to legitimizing defilement and that it implied a failure on the part of the nation to protect its youth. He firmly declared that the devil should not influence thoughts about approving birth control for teenagers and hoped that these ideas would not take root.
“That is formalizing defilement. That is clearly saying we have failed. We would rather strengthen the monitoring to ensure that we fight this vice but not legitimize it by giving such services and I am glad it isn’t yet a policy.” He said
The decision came after Lucy Akello, the Amuru District Woman MP, raised concerns about the draft policy, citing media reports. Akello sought clarification from the Ministry of Health on whether the age of consent in Uganda had been lowered from 18 to 15. She also questioned whether the government had ceased to be concerned about the potential impact of contraceptives on the bodies of teenagers and the risks of HIV transmission
In response, the State Minister for Primary Health, Margaret Muhanga, refuted allegations that the policy had already been approved and noted that media reports had taken Charles Olaro, Director of Curative Services at the Ministry of Health, out of context.
She explained that Dr. Olaro had raised the issue in the context of the high rate of teenage pregnancies and early marriages, where young girls were often married off to much older men. He had suggested lowering the age for family planning access as a potential solution, but it had not become official policy.
“We have so many teenage pregnancies, everyone who is sleeping with these girls knows that they are young and is defiling them, they are being married off to 65-year-old men. So, he suggested that should we lower the age of family planning to 15 years and he was asking the audience. He is a medical doctor, and he weighed the options, let the children get pregnant and die while giving birth, or let them take family planning if they can’t avoid it. Because it is in society. It was just a suggestion; it isn’t yet a policy,” Minister Muhanga said.
The State Minister for Primary Health clarified that the proposal was raised in response to high rates of teenage pregnancies and early marriages but had not been officially adopted as government policy.