Colombia’s new plan to tackle high rate of pregnancy among under 14s
Girls' education
Almost 13,000 girls in Colombia aged 10 to 14 became pregnant in the past two years Â鶹APP“ many of them raped by stepfathers and other relatives.
Young mothers in the South American country Â鶹APP“ in common with many other developing nations Â鶹APP“ are more likely to drop out of school and their own children often go on to become teenage parents themselves.
Colombia is tackling the problem by creating a new government body to reduce teenage pregnancies. The group will sit within the existing child and family protection agency (ICBF).
ICBF head Cristina Plazas said: Â鶹APPœTeenage pregnancy is both a cause and consequence of big economic inequalities. One in every five women in Colombia between 15 to 19 years of age are or have been pregnant Â鶹APP“ and whatÂ鶹APP™s most worrying is that 64% of those pregnancies were not planned.Â鶹APP
The , the charity arm of the global news agency, said rape of young girls by family members is still a taboo subject in Colombia and few men are convicted and even fewer go to jail. It said civil rights groups also claim there is poor-quality sex education at school. .
With 20% of adolescent girls becoming pregnant, there is still some way to go to achieve Millennium Developoment Goal 5, which calls for that to be reduced to 15%.
While most Colombian childen go to primary school and can read and write, enrollment rates for secondary drop to between 80% and 90%, according to .
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