Sierra Leone: teenage girls are dying from unsafe abortions and risky pregnancies

Sierra Leone: teenage girls are dying from unsafe abortions and risky pregnancies


Abortion is illegal in Sierra Leone, with one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the world. Attitudes need to change to save the lives of young girls

Hannah Mitchell
Thursday 20 July 2017

I recently saw a girl in clinic with terrible complications following a caesarean section. The operation had been botched and she had an infection around her uterus. She was in terrible pain and critically unwell. This was in the children’s clinic; the girl was 14 years old.

This scenario is all too common. She is just one of the thousands of adolescent girls estimated to have become pregnant this year in Sierra Leone. In 2013 the country had the 7th highest teenage pregnancy rate in the world, 38% of women aged 20-24 had their first baby before the age of 18. Sierra Leone is by no means an exception. Worldwide teenage pregnancy is a huge issue, 11% of births globally are to women aged 15-19, with the majority of these taking place in low- and middle-income countries.

Continued at The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jul/20/teen-pregnancy-sierra-leone-involve-men