13-year-old confirmed pregnant

Corentyne underage marriage

Following reports that teenage girls on the Corentyne, Berbice were allowed into marriage and one was living with an adult male as if married, one of the two girls has been confirmed pregnant.
Doctors have confirmed that one of the two 13-year-old girls is pregnant.
On Wednesday, Guyana Times had reported that a 13-year-old girl was allegedly wed to an older man over the weekend. This led to the Child Care and Protection Agency (CC&PA) promising a probe.
Police on the Corentyne are currently investigating two other cases.
The parents of one of the girls, this newspaper was told, have been assisting the Police with their investigations which led to the arrest of one man.
Over the weekend a man admitted to this newspaper that he has been living with a 13-year-old girl.
Meanwhile, residents on the Corentyne had gone to the Office of the Prime Minister after they had reported the matter to the relevant agencies and had not been getting a response.
Regional Representative to the Prime Minister, Gobin Harbhajan, explained that he too had tried to get the relevant agencies involved.
“The residents of the community kept calling and complaining they had some priests and pastors also called about an underage girls who would have run away a few weeks ago and then the parents were making arrangements to marry the girls. I passed on that information to the Number 51 Police Station Sergeant and also at the Police Outpost at Number 62 Village, but the complaints continued to come in.”
The age of consent in Guyana is 16. The age of consent was raised from 13 to 16 on October 31, 2005. Harbhajan added that he is surprised at the way one Police Officer acted when the information was given to him.
Meanwhile, Divisional Commander Assistant Commissioner Clifton Hicken have since assured that the matters will be investigated while the CC&PA is also investigating both matters.
On Tuesday, Director of the CC&PA, Ann Greene, during an interview with Guyana Times stated that the CC&PA currently does not have enough information to conduct the investigation.
“We (are) looking at it but we got to get more information to send the people out. We don’t have exactly where this place is or who these people are. I have it down on the list… I need more information on where we can find this child,” she explained.
Greene noted that this is the first report coming out of the Corentyne, Berbice area after quite some time. According to her, such cases were more prevalent in years gone by but had decreased significantly due to sensitisation conducted by her agency.