Being married, pregnant and having a child are major life events. For adolescent girls (aged 10–19 years old), experiencing these events often means facing harsh social sanctions and difficult choices that have life-long consequences. It could mean dropping out of school; being shamed and stigmatized by family, community members and peers; increased vulnerability to violence and abuse, increased exposure and risk to STIs and HIV/AIDS, greater poverty and economic hardship and at worst death.

The trend for reported cases of Child Marriage and Teenage Pregnancies has been on the rise since 2011 and exponentially shot up during the outbreak of covid-19. The rise in teenage pregnancies, child marriages and ultimately the number of adolescent mothers has been widely reported by all stakeholders and witnessed in communities. The current teenage pregnancy rate in Uganda at 25% is the highest in East Africa.

Child Marriages and Teenage Pregnancies jeopardize our country’s strategy to achieve results under the Human Capital Development Programme outlined in the National Development Plan III.

The development of the Strategy to End Child Marriage and Teenage Pregnancy in Uganda 2022/23-2026/27 outlines Government of Uganda’s commitment to revert the current negative trend with a goal to End child marriage and teenage pregnancy for inclusive growth and socio-economic transformation through promoting an enabling environment to end child marriage and teenage pregnancies, influencing changes in dominant thinking in regard to social and cultural norms that cause, drive and perpetuate the practice of child marriage and teenage pregnancies in society, and developing and strengthening institutional, community and family systems for prevention of child marriages and teenage pregnancies.

We are confident that this strategy if supported and implemented will help to accelerate household, community and National level actions to prevent, respond and end the harmful practice of child marriage and teenage pregnancy in Uganda.