Assessment Of Factors Contributing To Underage Motherhood In Mwiki, Kasarani Constituency
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Date
2019Author
Gichure, Caroline W
Type
ThesisLanguage
enMetadata
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The terms „underage mothers‟ in this study are used to refer to girls under the age of
18 who have birthed and are involved in parenting the child. The study investigated
the factors contributing to teenage pregnancy. It was based on the following
objectives: to analyze the characteristics of underage mothers, to examine the push
and pull factors that led to underage pregnancy, to analyze the attitudes of the teenage
mothers towards motherhood and to analyze the parenting habits of the adolescent
mothers. This study adopted a descriptive survey design. The location of the study
was Mwiki, Kasarani Constituency. A sample of 57 teenage mothers from the 23
districts in Mwiki was used. Data collection was done using interviews, observation
as well as questionnaires prepared by the researcher. The research findings indicated
that 57. 89 percent of the teenage mothers birthed aged between 11 years and 15 years
while the remaining 42.11 percent birthed aged between 16 years and 18 years.
Financially, all of the respondents depended on family members and friends for
support. 51.79 percent of the mothers depended on their parents and another 41.9
percent on their guardians. Of the total teenage mothers interviewed, 2.8 percent, said
that their friends supported them financially. On the push and pull factors, the
research findings indicated that while most of the respondents were from destitute
backgrounds, none of them benefitted financially from having children as 63.16
percent got pregnant for their older boyfriends who they met in social gatherings.
28.07 percent of the underage mothers were sexually abused and the remaining 8.77
percent revealed that the babies‟ fathers were their biological relatives. In addition,
the study found that 38.61 percent of the girls witnessed physical abuse while growing
up, 29.82 percent had witnessed sexual abuse while 38.61 percent had witnessed
emotional abuse. Only 43.86 percent of all the interviewees had not witnessed any of
the three forms of abuse in their childhood. This study established that though peer
pressure and dysfunctional families do play a role in contributing to underage
pregnancy, the main factor is poverty which was articulated by their characteristics
such as economic dependency and inability to afford a good education. It is the
recommendation of this study that schools, churches and other communal institutions
hold forums that engage teenage girls on how to cope with poverty and dysfunction in
their homes. Moreover, The Department of Children Services should hold awareness
creation campaigns in the media to publicize the rights of children, the responsibilities
of parents to their children and the measures taken against fathers who abdicate their
duties.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Subject
Adolescents With HIV/AIDSRights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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