Teenage pregnancy fuelled by lack of access to comprehensive sexual education

‒ Govt, local and international partners geared to address challenges

By Kristen Macklingam

The scourge of teenage pregnancy continues to plague Guyana, and in order to combat this growing issue, more focus is being placed on allowing adolescents easy access to comprehensive sexuality education, among other initiatives.
However, efforts to curb the growing trend of adolescents engaging in sexual activities do not necessarily mean that unwanted or unplanned pregnancies will not occur.

Sadly, while birth control can reduce the risk of unintended pregnancies, most teens who use birth control, such as tablets or condoms, do so inconsistently and sporadically, hence there is no guarantee that birth control would prevent pregnancy.
Startling statistics reveal that Guyana has the highest rate of adolescent pregnancy in the Caribbean, and according to Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence, a recently conducted Situation Analysis Report on Adolescents in Guyana revealed that the fertility rate is above average, especially among Indigenous girls, where there are 74 of every 1,000 between the ages 15 and 19 living in Regions One, Seven and Nine becoming pregnant.
The Minister pointed out that Regions One, Seven and Nine are the burdened areas, where the rate of adolescent pregnancies remains consistently high due to a number of contributing factors, but she maintained that plans are underway to target those factors.

“Some of the contributory factors being lack of access to contraceptives and comprehensive (sexuality) education; risky sexual behaviour and early sex; and there is also another overriding factor that many times we overlook, and that is the cultural differences.
And that is something that, in everything that we do, we must take into account. Whether it is in Region One, Region Seven or Region Nine, we will find that as we move from one tribe to the other, their cultural differences stand out,” she explained.
The overarching goal is, by 2022, to reduce annual adolescent pregnancy by 10 percent in Regions One and Nine.
She also explained that the issue of teenage/adolescent pregnancy is one which continues to affect the development of the country, and that the Public Health Ministry recognises that it cannot singlehandedly address this problem.
“We have also prioritised this issue on our health agenda…and thereby sought the support of other local and international partners to address the challenges of providing services to adolescent target groups. Against that backdrop, the Ministry of Public Health made the commitment to align the Adolescent Health Unit with the strategic action outlined in the Global Strategy for Women, Children and Adolescents’ Health 2016-2030,” she explained.
Meanwhile, according to the Director of the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA’s) Sub-Regional Office for the Caribbean, Alison Drayton, much more has to be done to help teenagers become more educated and have easier access to comprehensive sexuality education as early as possible, since persons aged 10 to 24 years account for the largest proportion, 31 percent, of the country’s population.
“Guyana has the highest rate of adolescent pregnancy in the English-speaking Caribbean. We can change that, and we must; the second highest in Latin America and the Caribbean — and the Caribbean is second only to Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of adolescent rates of pregnancy. This is something that we can and must change,” she declared. She noted that the UNFPA, along with the Government of Guyana, will be employing targeted interventions in Regions One and Nine – the two Regions in Guyana where women reported the lowest use of contraceptives.
“Adolescents and youths must be provided with age appropriate comprehensive sexuality education to develop the knowledge and skills they need to protect their health throughout their lives. However, education and information are not enough; good quality reproductive health services must also be readily available to help adolescents make informed choices and be healthy. At the local level, communities should be provided with infrastructure to deliver reproductive healthcare in a youth-friendly and sensitive way,” she declared.
Drayton added that although new programmes and initiatives are soon to be implemented as part of reducing adolescent pregnancies in Guyana, there are already a number of projects and interventions ongoing, and these will continue.

Data has revealed that one in every five, or 20 percent of pregnancies, involves a teenager; with most of the adolescent mothers not understanding the implication, importance and responsibility of becoming parents at a young age.
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 receive any form of child support, which increases the likelihood of seeking assistance from the Government.
As such, the Government, along with international partners, continues to lobby for a multilateral approach in order to address the issue of teenage pregnancy in Guyana, so as to change the behaviour of teenagers and simultaneously deal with the underlying issues, such as poverty, gender-inequality and education.