If she had to do it again, Inès (several witnesses wanted to remain anonymous) would not do it. In second grade she found out she was pregnant. Very quickly, the young man (co)responsible for the pregnancy gets scared and disappears. Her mother pressures her to keep the child, a “blessing”and promises to take care of him while he finishes his studies in Abidjan, the economic capital of the Ivory Coast.
At that moment everything happened quickly. “The decisions were made for me” she remembers. She was then 16 years old and gave birth to a girl. The following year, Inès passed high school before undertaking studies in a town neighboring her parents’. she is going to see her baby “from time to time” but it is the only maternal bond she maintains.
A few years later, after finding work and a small accommodation, she decided to get her daughter back. But they don’t know each other well and mayonnaise doesn’t work. “He called me by my first name or sometimes by “aunt”.” sighs Inès, who decides “return” his daughter to her parents. “We were both unhappy” she said.
When she turned thirty, she married and had another son. “I had a second chance to be a mother” smiles Inès, who is now 34 years old and lives with her husband and 5-year-old son in Abidjan. Her daughter only lives 25 minutes away from her, but she only sees her a few times a year. “She is my mother’s daughter.” – he summarizes with tears in his eyes.
A large number of early pregnancies
In Abidjan, the economic capital of the Ivory Coast, Inès is far from the only one who maintains a weak bond with a first child, born as a teenager, and who discovers paternity years later. Nationally, the average age of first birth is 20.3 years and the UN estimates that one in four Ivorian teenagers has already experienced a pregnancy. The country is also experiencing an important phenomenon of “early pregnancy” in a school environment.
“My memory has erased the few memories I had when I was a young mother.” – confesses Mélanie, who also became a mother at the age of 16 after being threatened, in the event of an abortion, with the rejection of those around her, who were very religious. The first months he gives love to this girl as he does to a “little sister who has just been born.” But as she becomes an adult, Mélanie feels the need to assert herself and distance herself from her family, including her daughter. The 26-year-old is now the mother of another 3-year-old daughter. It was her older sister who took in the first one and who is still responsible for her. “One day I will ask my daughter for forgiveness, we were never a family. »
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