Concern over high teen pregnancies in northern Mozambique

More than half of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 in Mozambique’s troubled Cabo Delgado province have already been pregnant, according to a study by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

Rampant insecurity is a fact of life for people living in the region, rich in oil, gas and rubies, that has suffered under a six-year jihadist insurgency.

The violence has forced more than one million people from their home, left 4,000 dead, and destroyed almost 200 schools.

Pregnant girls had previously been barred from going to school but Cabo Delgado’s education director Ivaldo Quincardete says this was later changed amid concerns over literacy levels. As many as 70% of women there cannot read or write.

He says the latest data is worrying and yet “another indication of the enormous challenge facing the province”.

Four in 10 girls in Mozambique, according to a government official, get married by the age of 18.