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Hinterland records highest teenage pregnancy rate – survey finds
Guyana’s hinterland is plagued with the highest rate of teenage pregnancy.
At least this is according to a report of a Situational Analysis of Adolescent Pregnancy presented to government Wednesday by the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund [UNICEF].
The report on the survey was handed over on Wednesday at a ceremony at the Providence, East Bank Demerara, Ramada Princess Hotel.
The Analysis found that while in coastal Guyana 90 out of 1,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 years gave birth during 2010 and 2015, it was the hinterland which accounted for the majority of teenage pregnancy amounting to 105.
But teenage pregnancy is not a challenge unique Guyana, since according to UNICEF, it has been found that places such as the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua have statistics that exceed the situation that obtains in coastal Guyana reflected by 101 and 93 cases of teenage pregnancy [per 1000] respectively.
The report of Guyana’s teenage pregnancy situation reveals that one out of five teen girls have given birth in the last 20 years [covering 1997- 2016] which UNICEF has classified as a ‘silent alarm’ in terms of obstacles to gender equality for girls.
UNICEF has noted that pregnancy during adolescence can have profound effects on adolescents, their offspring, their family and the country’s developing population.
When a teen girl becomes pregnant, her schooling often gets disrupted or ends, her prospects of a job are dim and the health hazards due to complications from pregnancy and childbirth can be huge.
In fact, the organization has been able to deduce that early pregnancy is both cause and consequence of child marriage and early union, sexual gender-based violence and limited life projects for girls.
Officials, including First Lady Sandra Granger [third from left], UNICEF’s Ms. Sylvie Foucet [fourth from left] and Minister of Public Health, Ms. Volda Lawrence [fifth from left], display the Situation Analysis of Adolescent Pregnancy Report.
In addition, socio-economic conditions play a key role with poverty, level of education, area of residence, beliefs, traditions and culture having a strong correlation with behavioural patterns.
The information and statistics revealed during the analysis, along with that which was gathered in June when National Policy of Reintegration of Adolescent Mothers into the Formal School System was launched, will provide the foundation for projects, programmes and policies that will reduce in the short term and eliminate in the long term the issue of adolescent pregnancy in Guyana.
It is also an invitation to like-minded partners to co-create responses to prevent early pregnancies and break the cycle, which is a challenge across the globe.
Early pregnancy is a challenge worldwide with 17 million girls below 19 years old giving birth annually and with two million births by girls below 15 years. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the rate is 66.5 out of every 1,000 teen girls.
Here in Guyana, a plan of action will shortly be introduced to help address the national challenges associated with teenage pregnancy. This development, according to Senior Minister of Public Health, Ms. Volda Lawrence, was made possible through strategic collaborations, which allowed for the “hard evidence” to be collated and presented so that “this critical area in the health sector can be addressed.”
Collaborating with UNICEF to conduct the analysis were the Ministries of Public Health, Education, Social Protection, Indigenous Peoples Affairs, Communities and United Nations sister agencies the United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA] and the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisations [PAHO/WHO].
“Today, I would say the launching of this survey is timely, particularly since this is a growing global concern not only for us here, but for world leaders, because this matter is discussed at the very highest level,” the Public Health Minister noted.
In fact, she asserted that the focus and theme for this year is precisely a call on health personnel around the world to marshal their energies on adolescents – the vulnerable group being targeted.
“The call is for us to find a holistic approach to the myriad of issues besetting this age group, especially the high incidence of adolescents’ pregnancies,” the Minister posited, as she addressed the forum at which the findings on the report on Guyana’s teenage pregnancy was presented by Dr. Morris Edwards.
Based on available statistics, some 17 million adolescents, or 19 percent, give birth annually, with some two million girls below age 15. “That is the world we live in today,” said the Minister, as she underscored the need to keep a watchful eye on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs].
Even as she presented the feature address at the forum, First Lady Sandra Granger pointed out that while a great deal of focus is directed to teen mothers, teen fathers should also be invited to participate in programmes that can give them skills in parenting too. She however questioned, “How many teen fathers, or fathers for that matter, actually participate in those programmes or in the lives of the children, and provide the psychological, social and economic support that those children and the teen mothers need?”
The First Lady is, moreover, optimistic that this shortcoming would have been detected, even as she went further to consider the circumstances, which must be addressed, that are known to result in teenage pregnancy, such as poverty leading to transactional sex, rape, among other issues.
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