Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos, 20 Oc­to­ber 2021 (PA­HO/WHO) — The World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion es­ti­mates at least 777,000 girls un­der the age of 15 years give birth each year in de­vel­op­ing re­gions. In Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, a mod­est ap­prox­i­ma­tion of 120 young girls give birth dai­ly – this es­ti­ma­tion is ex­clu­sive of preg­nan­cies that end in abor­tion and mis­car­riage. 

This is the fo­cus of new re­search pre­sent­ed by Re­gion­al Ado­les­cent Health Ad­vi­sor, PA­HO, Dr. Son­ja Caffe, dur­ing the com­mem­o­ra­tive launch of Ado­les­cent Preg­nan­cy Pre­ven­tion Week on 18 Oc­to­ber 2021, which is be­ing ob­served for the sec­ond year in the Caribbean.

Ado­les­cent Preg­nan­cy Pre­ven­tion Week in the Caribbean calls for spe­cial at­ten­tion to pol­i­cy and leg­is­la­tion to end ado­les­cent preg­nan­cy es­pe­cial­ly among girls un­der 15 years old.

Dr. Caffe ex­plained the con­cern­ing ef­fects of ear­ly preg­nan­cy on ado­les­cent girls and their off­spring which neg­a­tive­ly af­fects them men­tal­ly, phys­i­cal­ly and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, there­by mak­ing it an im­por­tant glob­al health con­cern. 

The on­go­ing re­search, which utilis­es da­ta from most Caribbean coun­tries, aims to bridge the gap in ex­ist­ing stud­ies that pro­vide da­ta for ear­ly preg­nan­cies in girls aged 15 – 19, by con­tribut­ing in­sights for girls un­der 15 years old. The re­search has to date re­vealed a re­duc­tion in ear­ly preg­nan­cies from the 15 – 19 age group in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean and an over­all slow­er de­creas­ing trend in preg­nan­cies among girls un­der age 15 on the re­gion­al lev­el, but alarm­ing and un­for­tu­nate in­creas­es in preg­nan­cies among girls un­der age 15 in some coun­tries. 

Pre­sen­ters at the event echoed the ur­gent call for poli­cies and pro­grams that sup­port and pro­vide crit­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion to vul­ner­a­ble girls in the Caribbean re­gion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the face of COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, that has in­creased cas­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and in­cest among young girls. 

“De­spite the as­pi­ra­tional and pro­gres­sive 2014 In­te­grat­ed Strate­gic Frame­work for the re­duc­tion of ado­les­cent preg­nan­cy in the Caribbean agreed on by CARI­COM mem­ber states, ado­les­cents in the Caribbean still face le­gal, so­ci­etal, pol­i­cy and health-sys­tem re­lat­ed bar­ri­ers that lim­it their ac­cess to qual­i­ty, in­te­grat­ed sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health ser­vices and in­for­ma­tion,” UNF­PA Re­gion­al Di­rec­tion-Caribbean, Al­i­son Dray­ton said dur­ing her open­ing re­marks. 

De­part­ment Di­rec­tor Fam­i­ly, Pro­mo­tion and Life Course, PA­HO, Mr. An­dreas de Fran­cis­co re­it­er­at­ed, “We must start with the rou­tine rec­om­men­da­tion and mon­i­tor­ing of fer­til­i­ty of girls younger than 15 years old, but we must go be­yond doc­u­ment­ing them – ad­dress­ing preg­nan­cies in young girls re­quires that we stop cov­er­ing up taboo is­sues such as in­cest, sex­u­al vi­o­lence per­pe­trat­ed by fa­thers, un­cles, step­fa­thers and neigh­bours.” 

Mr. De Fran­cis­co went on to ad­vo­cate for stronger leg­is­la­tion, poli­cies and the es­tab­lish­ment of mech­a­nisms where girls who are sub­ject­ed to sex­u­al vi­o­lence, can re­port the prob­lems and find help.

The ex­ist­ing re­search aims to take a pos­i­tive step in the di­rec­tion of ad­vo­ca­cy and ev­i­dence-in­formed pol­i­cy plan­ning as it analy­ses avail­able da­ta (from pop­u­la­tion – based sur­veys and vi­tal sta­tis­tics) and ex­ist­ing poli­cies, strate­gies and plans to in­form the ro­bust de­vel­op­ment of new in­ter­ven­tions to re­duce oc­cur­rences of un­der 15 preg­nan­cies in the re­gion. 

Di­rec­tor of Hu­man De­vel­op­ment at the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at, He­len Roy­er, pro­vid­ed in­sight in­to CARI­COM projects that fo­cus on the pro­tec­tion of youth across the Caribbean. These in­clude ini­tia­tives un­der the ‘Roadmap for Pro­mot­ing the Health and Well­be­ing of Ado­les­cents and Youth in the Caribbean”, the re­con­struc­tion of the CARI­COM Youth De­vel­op­ment and Ac­tion Plan, as well as a youth de­vel­op­ment sur­vey to as­cer­tain chal­lenges en­coun­tered and op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able for progress among Mem­ber States.  

In his keynote ad­dress, Min­is­ter of Health and Well­ness, Be­lize, the Ho­n­ourable Michel Chebat, called for pol­i­cy mak­ers to in­sti­tute poli­cies that will help to ed­u­cate and pro­tect ado­les­cent girls from sex­u­al vi­o­lence, in­cest and part­ner vi­o­lence.  He al­so pro­vid­ed an out­line of ini­tia­tives in his coun­try that have been suc­cess­ful in re­duc­ing child preg­nan­cies and sup­port­ing young moth­ers and their chil­dren. He high­light­ed the in­clu­sion of ear­ly preg­nan­cy as a pri­or­i­ty in their strate­gic plan­ning and as­sign­ing each young per­son a so­cial se­cu­ri­ty num­ber, through which they can ac­cess health­care screen­ings, lit­er­a­cy sup­port, sex­u­al re­pro­duc­tive health in­for­ma­tion and em­ploy­ment as­sis­tance. 

Cre­ative po­ems and spo­ken word were de­liv­ered by three young artistes - Bran­don Singh Dil­lon Math­i­son and Ash­ley An­tho­ny, and ad­vo­cat­ed for the pro­tec­tion of youth and pre­ven­tion of ear­ly preg­nan­cies.

The launch event, chaired by a mem­ber of PA­HO’s ‘Youth for Health’, Terez Lord, served as a roadmap to fur­ther re-ig­nite re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties and am­pli­fy youth voic­es, to bring to the fore­front dis­cus­sions about the pro­vi­sion of sex­u­al re­pro­duc­tive health, pro­tec­tion and sup­port for youth via poli­cies and ev­i­dence in­formed pro­grams.

Ado­les­cent Preg­nan­cy Pre­ven­tion Week is filled with in­sight­ful ac­tiv­i­ties which are youth dri­ven to en­cour­age ideas from all the sec­tors of the re­gion such as pol­i­cy mak­ers, youth di­rec­tors, Min­istries of Ed­u­ca­tion and Health, as well as adults, on pre­vent­ing ear­ly preg­nan­cies. Links to this week’s events are avail­able via PA­HO’s so­cial me­dia plat­forms.