A UNITED NATIONS official has called on the Caribbean to address the high level of teenage pregnancies in the region.
Deputy representative of UNICEF Office for the Eastern Caribbean area, Muriel Mafico, said the United Nations Population Fund estimated that about 20 per cent of women in the Caribbean had at least one child by age ten, with “a considerable percentage of adolescent girls” giving birth before age 15.
As a result, she said, teenage pregnancy was cheating many young girls in the Caribbean of an education, since so many pregnant schoolgirls were forced to become dropouts.
Further, she noted that Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) statistics indicated that deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth were among the leading cause of death for 15-19-year-old girls in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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