Zimbabwe: Beyond the Numbers – Teenage Pregnancy in Mbire and the National Crisis Beyond the Statistics

At 15 years old, Tariro* should still be in Form Two.

Instead, she spends her mornings carrying water from a shallow borehole in Mbire District while balancing her infant son on her back. Her school uniform hangs folded in a small suitcase beneath her bed.

“When my parents failed to pay school fees, I stopped going regularly,” she says quietly. “Then I started seeing a man who helped me with food and money.”

Within months, she was pregnant.

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