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Panel bats for special drive against teen pregnancy

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SHILLONG, Jan 31: Concerned with the rising cases of teenage pregnancies in West Khasi Hills and southern Garo Hills, the Assembly Committee for Women Empowerment (ACWE) has recommended a special campaign by the state government to address the issue at the earliest.
ACWE chairperson, Ampareen Lyngdoh on Sunday said that in view of the alarming rise in teenage pregnancies in the two areas, “the state government needs to immediately activate a huge campaign to ensure that communities there get the correct message.”
“When it comes to dealing with teenage pregnancy, it is very alarming, and in the light of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, it becomes all the more dangerous for the community at large”, Lyngdoh said, adding that the trend came to light during a visit to the two areas by the committee members.
“The government now has to start a special campaign otherwise too many families will break up. The moment two individuals, who themselves are children, engage in acts of adults, you will have very weak families in the community, and we need to look at this very seriously,” she said.
The ACWE chairperson further informed that some hospitals such as the Maternity and Child Hospital in Nongstoin, completed many months ago, are still not operational.
“Few things need to be put in place even as the reach of the Meghalaya Health Insurance Scheme is still very inadequate,” she said. Talking about the infant mortality rate, Lyngdoh said that the cases in Garo Hills region were still alarming and that it was still a major issue which even the chief minister had acknowledged as a big challenge.
On the various women schemes, the ACWE chairperson said that the progress of implementation of the Prime Minister’s special scheme for first-time pregnant women was very slow. Worse still, all beneficiaries under the scheme have not been fully covered, she added.
“There are issues of networking where registration becomes a challenge. Many health centres need immediate attention. We still see that facilities provided to the general public in distant places have already been compromised with because of bad roads and other challenges,” Lyngdoh said.

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