Fatimah (seated, sixth right) in a photo call with the OSTPC SOP workshop participants yesterday.
KUCHING: Sarawak recorded 1,264 cases of teenage pregnancy in the first six months of this year, said Minister of Welfare, Women and Community Wellbeing Datuk Fatimah Abdullah yesterday.
She said this problem remained worrying even though reported cases had dropped, from 3,401 in 2014 to 2,909 last year.
“The number of cases in Sarawak, if compared with the other states in the peninsula, is still worrying because their figures have not reached 1,000 cases,” she said when closing the One Stop Teenage Pregnancy Committee (OSTPC) standard operating procedure (SOP) workshop, here.
“We aim to reduce the number of teenage pregnancy in the state to below 1,000 cases.”
Citing statistics since 2013, Fatimah said Sarawak was ranked second highest after Sabah, but in terms of percentage of babies born in hospital through teenage pregnancy, Sarawak topped the ranking.
“As for unwed teenage pregnancy, statistics from the Health Department showed the percentage was 35.6 per cent in 2014, and 48 per cent in 2015. As of June this year, the percentage is 6.5 per cent.”
She said the key-performance indicators (KPI) for OSTPC were to record fewer occurrences of unwed teenage pregnancy and less baby dumping due to teenage pregnancy.
Besides providing holistic inter-agency support to resolve the problems faced as a result of teenage pregnancy, she said OSTPC was also expected to hold advocacy programmes to educate the public on the problems faced due to teenage pregnancy.
“OSTPC is here not only to treat but also identify the factors contributing to teenage pregnancy. We know the problems faced by teenage pregnancy is not only health problems but also many other problems, such as birth registration, marriage, welfare of mother and child, education and many other issues.”
Therefore, she hoped the SOP in dealing with teenage pregnancy would be further refined so that it would be able to function as an inter-agency committee to resolve teenage pregnancy problems promptly.
Fatimah said the SOP must be understood by all committee members at all levels in order to tackle the problem efficiently.
Fatimah said 10 OSTPC had been formed in the state, with two more— in Sibu and Serian— to be set up this year.
The establishment of OSTPC, she pointed out, was not to encourage teenage pregnancy but to provide support and to create awareness among teenagers to be in control of their own destiny.
Meanwhile, Fatimah said her ministry would sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the police soon on strategic partnerships to tackle women-related issues, such as rape, domestic violence, violence against women and children, suicide, drug addiction, sexual abuse, and teenage pregnancy.