It is a shocking story but unfortunately not an unusual one: a 13 year old girl gave birth to a baby in the washroom of her school. This incident happened in a suburb of Hyderabad called Madhapur. She went into labor while in class, then went to the washroom because of stomach pains and delivered her baby there. Supposedly the girl’s parents were unaware of her pregnancy and no one in the school noticed it either. A boy called Dinesh who was seen accompanying the girl has been booked in this matter.
The implications for the teen mother:
Image Source
Thankfully both mother and child are safe. However looking at the girl’s age, this could so easily not have been soon. The circumstances of the birth being what they are; the girl almost certainly did not get any kind of prenatal care and any number of things could have gone wrong. The risks of teen pregnancy are many and higher than the general average: risk of preeclampsia (high blood pressure during pregnancy), low birth weight babies, premature birth and postpartum depression are much higher.
A wake up call for us.
Apart from the fact that this young girl will forever bear the stigma of being an unwed mother not just in society but probably in her family as well, what does this say about us as a society? It says that this little girl had no idea what she was doing and what consequences it could have (assuming that the intercourse was consensual).
It tells us that the girl was too scared to go to anyone in a position of authority by the time she realised what had happened. It tells us that this tribal girl, who was going to school is now probably forever deprived of the chance to better her lot in life – it is unlikely that she will be allowed to continue her education now with a child to look after and the label of “unwed mother” dogging her footsteps for the rest of her life.
Image Source
We the people need to address the elephant in the room – our unwillingness to speak about sex in general and about sex education in particular. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan’s statement about a year ago: that sex education in schools should be banned typifies this attitude of squeamishness about all things sexual and the studied refusal to acknowledge that kids need to know about sex.
All the nonsense about sex education leading to increase in sexual activity has to be seen for what it is: hypocrisy. Because sexual activity among children is a reality whether we want to accept it or not. Add to this the fact that the knowledge of sex these kids have is either inadequate or inaccurate, and we have a very dangerous situation on our hands. This needs to change right away. A little girl in Madhapur got pregnant, and no one knew until she gave birth in a bathroom. The elephant in the room just trumpeted!
Author: Reena Daruwalla
