Child Pregnancy Bill is not well thought out

The Senate is set to debate the Care and Protection of Child Parents, Bill 2016, which intends to protect the rights of child parents.

The Bill is a fine idea but the proposer has not really thought it out well as implementation in its current form will be next to impossible.

The Bill will be hard to implement because it sidelines other concerned parties. It treats parents, school administrators and the society like enemies of the teenage mother and doesn't have points of co-operation, only cold directives to them.

As much as I agree with its overall intention to ensure child mothers are not denied their right to education, I disagree with the way it treats them with a velvet glove.

Fact remains they are no longer children but mothers and they must be alive to this reality - that they are no longer children and have weighty responsibilities.

One of the main reasons child mothers abandon school is the discrimination and vilification by fellow students and teachers.

Demanding that school administrators ensure that such girls study in a conducive environment devoid of harassment is a hard call as controlling human psychology and emotions is not easy.

However, the move to forbid compulsory pregnancy tests is welcome, but only because of the callous way most schools conduct the tests.

Concerning parents, the Bill contradicts itself. On one side it sidelines parents and gives the child independent rights while on the other it gives the parent full responsibilities.

The Bill bars teachers from revealing positive pregnancy results to the student's parents unless with the concurrence of the child. Actually, the Bill will be seen as rewarding teenage sex as there is nowhere it tries to vilify it.