Amnesty International South Africa Raises Awareness about Child Abuse with Emotional Teenage Pregnancy Stories

In 2022, over 105,000 girls aged 10­–19 gave birth. For Amnesty International South Africa, this is a ‘crisis that cannot be ignored’. To this end, they, in partnership with Joe Public have launched their most recent campaign, #ScanTheScar.

In collaboration with Woman and Home and Bona magazines, the print campaign was launched. Readers were encouraged to ‘scan the scar’ – an image of a caesarean scar on a young girl's stomach embedded with a Spotify code. Once scanned, the code directed readers to a Spotify playlist featuring real stories of child and teenage pregnancies, collected with the assistance of Children of Success and Women & Men Against Child Abuse. Well-known female poets and artists – Lebo Mashile, Koleka Putuma and Thembe Mvula – narrated these stories and conveyed the experiences of three young girls.

“The crisis of child and teenage pregnancy cannot be ignored. The numbers of young girls giving birth are staggering but we need to remember that these are not just numbers, but real people and our #ScanTheScar campaign gives a voice to these individuals. It is important for us to continue highlighting the crisis we face so that there can be change. This issue needs to be tackled by the government and the people of South Africa together, however, the state has a responsibility to create an enabling environment for the youth to make autonomous and informed decisions, to support these young and adolescent girls to continue their education so that they do not fall through the cracks,” said Shenilla Mohamed, executive director Amnesty International South Africa.

“As advertisers, we have a huge responsibility to highlight issues like child and teenage pregnancy, and work with organisations such as Amnesty International South Africa to spark these important conversations,” commented Martin Schlumpf, executive creative director at Joe Public.

To listen to the poems on Spotify, click here.

Visit the Amnesty site to take action.