Expert alarmed at sex debut age lowering
The age Malawian youths start engaging in sex continues to lower at an alarming rate and policymakers should do more to reverse the trend and ensure girls stay away from early pregnancies and marriages, a leading scholar has warned.
Chisole Mhango, a gynaecologist and senior lecturer at the University of Malawi’s College of Medicine, made the remarks in Lilongwe during a science café organised by the African Institute for Development Policy.
He warned that girls and boys in the country were having sex debut as young as 12 amid no prior or aftermath interventions to avoid contracting HIV and Aids or early pregnancies.
Said Mhango, “While we are raising the age of marriage, the age of sex debut for young girls continue to go down which means there is going to be a long period between the age people start having sex and the time they get married.”
He said complications of unwanted abortions and failure by authorities to promote use of contraceptives continued to pose a threat to attempts to prolong girls’ stay in schools.
Africa Institute for Development policy knowledge translation scientist Habiba Longwe-Ngwira said the café is part of the institute’s secure health programme aimed at putting research evidence at the heart of policy and programme decisions for better health
“Our studies have shown that there are weak linkages between researchers and institutions so the cafes are aimed at bringing together all players,” he said.
