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TEENAGE PREGNANCY
Sadly, teenage pregnancy has remained in the high numbers in Guyana, and unfortunately there are hardly any public debates about teaching safe sex to teenagers or the consequences of physical intimacy. Around half of the teens in Guyana are sexually active, and many of them have involuntary sex at a young age, which invariably increases the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Most teenagers will have a sexual encounter at least once by age 15, and many would be involved in sexual intercourse during their high school years.
Eight out of ten teenage pregnancies in Guyana are unplanned; they are due to mistakes and they carry a social stigma in most communities. While birth control can reduce the risk of unintended pregnancies, most teens who use birth control methods like pills or condoms do so inconsistently and sporadically. However, there is no guarantee that birth control would prevent pregnancy.
Astonishingly, data shows that one in every five or 20 percent of pregnancies in Guyana involve a teenager and one in four or 25 percent of teenage mothers will experience another pregnancy within two years of having their first baby.
Most teenage pregnancies happen before they could understand the implication, importance and responsibility of becoming parents at a young age. Many of these pregnancies have resulted from social issues, including poverty, lack of education, peer pressure, sexual abuse, and low self-esteem, among others. According to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), almost 60 percent of teenage mothers were impoverished at the time they gave birth and less than one third of them would not receive any form of child support, which increases the likelihood of seeking assistance from the government.
Pregnancies among teens in most instances have irreparable consequences. It violates their rights with life-threatening concerns in terms of sexual and reproductive health, and poses high healthcare costs to the country.
Many teenage parents do not have the intellectual or emotional maturity that is needed to provide for another life. Teens with older partners than them are twice as likely to have unwanted sex and even though some teens appear to be physically matured, they are psychologically immature and ill-equipped to fend off the attention of older males. Often, these pregnancies are hidden for months thus resulting in a lack of adequate prenatal care and dangerous outcomes for the babies.
Pregnancy and parenthood are the main reasons as to why most teens would drop out of school and will work minimum wage jobs to make ends meet. But those with family and community support at the time of their pregnancy are as likely to graduate as their peers and will get higher paying jobs. However, pursuing a university education is not an immediate option for most teen moms. Less than four percent of teenage mothers will graduate from college by age 30.
Addressing the issue of teenage pregnancy in Guyana requires a multilateral approach by all stakeholders, including government agencies, to change the behaviour of teenagers and to deal with the underlying issues such as poverty, gender inequality and education.
The latter approach should include providing age-appropriate comprehensive sexual education for all young people in schools, investing in their education, empowering girls and ensuring that teenagers have access to sexual and reproductive health information as well as services to facilitate their choices.
They should be given as much factual information as possible about the different views on a range of related issues, whether contraception, abortion or abstinence. They should be told that having sex is not a game, but a matter to be approached with the greatest responsibility.
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