Quinn Abenakyo upon arrival at the airport yesterday. PHOTO BY MISS UGANDA WORLD~ FACEBOOK
Many young people have challenges in accessing age appropriate information and services on sexual and reproductive health.
This normally results in girls as young as ten years of age, being forced into early sex and marriage, increasing the rate of unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortion, sexually transmitted infections, as well as death or disability due to child birth.
Quinn Abenakyo, the reigning Miss World Africa believes that her position will help her highlight the problem, in a bid to end teenage pregnancies.
“Fighting teenage pregnancies will not stop only at Miss Uganda. As we all know my reign is only one year, but I need to push this forward for life,” she said at her first conference at the Kampala Serena Hotel, yesterday.
Abenakyo says she intends to project her efforts across the country, starting with her homeland, Busoga, which has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Uganda, second to Teso sub region, according to a study by Reproductive Health Uganda.
“Miss Uganda has regional queens, in the East, West, Central and North. If these people go to their areas and find out what is happening, then we can work together,” she noted.
Teenage pregnancy rates are staggeringly high in Uganda. According to the Uganda Demographic Health Survey 2016 report, 25 percent of adolescents aged 15-19 in Uganda have begun bearing children.
The study attributes this mostly to ignorance, or poor living conditions in which the youth live. Her embracing of this issue allowed Quiin Abenakyo to stand out from other contestants, making Miss World Africa Quin Abenakyo.
