By Melanie Aanyu,

The Minister of Education, Ms Janet Museveni, has said government is launching a national campaign to expose defilers and those responsible for teenage pregnancies so as to protect girls from sexual abuse.

While launching the Forum for African Women Educationists (FAWE) Silver Jubilee celebrations yesterday, Ms Museveni attributed the rampant pregnancies among teenage and school going girls to incest.

The First Lady revealed that the campaign funded by Unicef and UNFPA was prompted by results of a study conducted by FAWE last year concerning the impact of Covid-19.

The study revealed a 22.5 percent increase in pregnancies of young women aged between 10 and 24 from 80,655 March 2020, to 98,810 in June 2020, and a 366 percent increase in pregnancies among girls aged between 10 to 15 years.

Ms Museveni said the findings threaten to undermine progress that government has made to achieve gender equity in the last 25 years.

Ms Susan Opok Tumusiime, the executive director FAWE Uganda, said they launched their Silver Jubilee celebrations to observe 25 years of supporting education of vulnerable girls as well as present findings on the impact of Covid-19 on school going girls aged between 10 and 24.