A few days ago, Centre for Development in Social Justice (CDSJ) raised concern about the criminalisation of young girls and young women in pregnancy and child-related cases, especially where the justice system is quick to punish the young woman at the end of the story, but does not ask enough questions about how the story began, https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1B8j7bQogR/
Another case reported by the Lesotho Mounted Police Service from Thaba-Tseka shows why this concern needs urgent national attention.
According to the LMPS post, https://www.facebook.com/lmps01 , a 23-year-old young woman was charged and sentenced for leaving her three children, aged 4, 8 and 11, in unsafe circumstances. We must be clear that children must never be left without care, safety, food, supervision and protection, and the law has a duty to act when children are placed at risk.
But justice must also be fairly distributed.
If a 23-year-old has an 11-year-old child, it means she may have given birth when she was around 12 years old. If she has an 8-year-old child, it means she may also have given birth when she was around 15 years old. This means that before the justice system saw her as a mother who failed her children, it should also have seen her as a child or young girl who may herself have been failed by family, community, protection, welfare and criminal justice systems.
The question is simple: why is the criminal justice system not asking these questions?
Who impregnated her when she was still underage? Was the father of the 11-year-old child ever identified? Was the father of the 8-year-old child ever identified? Were possible sexual offences or child protection violations investigated? Was maintenance ever pursued? Were the fathers assessed for parental responsibility? Was any social welfare intervention made before the matter reached the point of arrest, conviction and sentencing?
This is the imbalance CDSJ is concerned about. The law becomes visible when a young mother fails, but it often becomes quiet when girls are impregnated, abandoned, unsupported and left to raise children alone. It moves quickly to punish the mother, but it does not always move with the same urgency to find the father, investigate possible abuse, enforce maintenance, or ask what support systems were missing before the harm happened.
This is not a defence of child neglect. It is a call for complete justice. The children who were left behind must be protected, but justice should not end with punishing their mother only. Fathers, families, communities and state systems must also be brought into the accountability conversation, because children are not created by mothers alone, and child protection cannot be carried by young women alone.
A young woman who became a mother while she was still a child should not meet the justice system only when she is being punished. She should have met a functioning protection system when she first became pregnant, when she was abandoned, when she needed parenting support, and when her children needed care.
CDSJ calls for every pregnancy and child-related criminal case involving a young mother to trigger a full protection and accountability inquiry. This should include the age at first pregnancy, possible sexual abuse, identity and responsibility of the father, maintenance, family support, poverty, psychosocial needs, social protection, and the safety of all children involved.
Justice must protect children from neglect, but it must also ask who neglected the girl before she became the accused mother.
Justice must not fall only on young mothers.
The Centre for Development in Social Justice (CDSJ) is a people-centred non-profit organization dedicated to advancing dignity, inclusion, accountability and equitable development.
