REFLECTIONS ON RURALITY STIGMA ASSOCIATED WITH TEEN-FATHERHOOD.

There is stereotypical thinking in communities when coming to parenthood. Most community members believe that only mothers are capable of caring for the child. Most community members see teen fathers as unresponsible community members who indulge into different drugs. This stereotypical thinking mainly occurs in rural areas wherein grandparents will deny the biological father rights to care for the child. Due to the rejection and other social ills that come to place, some fathers find substances as an escape route or coping mechanism. This paper is aimed at identifying and mapping available literature on rurality stigma, associated with teen fatherhood and substance use. The researcher adopted scoping review as the research design and purposively sampled articles from different databases, such as PubMed and ScienceDirect. Data was then analyzed thematically. From sampled articles, it became evident, that teen fathers are severely judged in their own communities. They are seen as unruly teenagers who became fathers at a young age. Some of the community members go as far as calling them reckless and careless. Moreover, it was established, that teen fathers are individuals who cannot execute parenting roles and lacking moral principles due to their high alcohol consumption. We recommend a multidisciplinary team to conduct awareness campaigns to educate community members on the effects of stigmatisation and discrimination on an individual's mental health - especially teen fathers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]