(Jamaica Observer) Faced with information that over 60 per cent of the students in a single grade at a Corporate Area high school are parents, the National Family Planning Board (NFPB) is urging policymakers to make sexual and reproductive health information and services available to sexually active minors.
The agency did not disclose the name or the precise location of the school, in order to protect the students, but it did say and that the girls in question had either already had children or were currently pregnant. As for the boys, the board said a number of them had current court cases relating to serious offences.
In an exclusive interview with the Jamaica Observer Friday evening, the agency said it did not appear that all the girls were enrolled in that school from before they got pregnant, but transferred there after having given birth. Still, it said the situation was untenable and needed urgent attention from all sectors of society.
“I was alarmed,” said NFPB Chair Dr Sandra Knight of her reaction when she first heard of the case. She admits, however, that she wasn’t shocked, “because the school in question is a receiving school for a community where teenage pregnancy is high”.
Asked whether the agency had seen similar cases before, outreach director at the NFPB Dianne Thomas related the case of a school some years ago where pregnancy figures doubled in the course of one holiday period. “That one, we thought, was alarming, but this one has certainly gone over anything that we could possibly think of,” she said.
The situation, the board said, is a jarring presentation of a major challenge with which it has been contending: the conflicting relationship between the United Nations prescribed rights of the child to sexual reproductive health services and Jamaican laws which, in defining a child as under 18 yet posting the age of consent at 16, prevents adolescents from accessing sexual reproductive health information and/or services.
“I just want to emphasise that the law that prohibits sexual reproductive health [services] of children needs to be abolished, adjusted, whatever they want to do with it. It is impractical. We are ignoring an enormous problem that’s in society, and it doesn’t make sense we have the problem and ignore it.
“Even physicians are unable to counsel children who come to us,” said the NFPB chair, who is a general practitioner. She was making reference to sexually active minors, whose parents would have to first be consulted if they are to be advised about sexual practices or issued with contraceptives. But that presents another layer of difficulty if the parents are unaware of their children’s behaviour.
“That law needs to be looked at carefully. We have to protect our children at all times, but we also need to help them go through some of the things we’re going through and help them,” said Knight.
“The children are having sex. Give them the condoms! Let them have it, let them use it, teach them how to use it,” Knight said Friday. “What’s wrong with that? Isn’t that better than having them pregnant or with HIV or an STI?”
Thomas agreed, adding: “The burden that this places on the health care system is enormous, because the cost of special medical care that a child under age 16 requires is right up there with the cost of a woman who is pretty much at the end of her reproductive years and requires specialist care.”
Developing that argument, Dr Knight said is was “1,000 times more expensive than a condom or than a health care provider sitting down five minutes and telling the child ‘have you thought about pregnancy? Do you protect yourself?’ We have to do that; we have to take our heads from out of the sand. We have to. We must.
“We don’t want our children to be having sex… we need to encourage (them) to delay the debut of sexual activity. We know they are prepared for it socially, psychologically or physically. We have that message, but for those who will be having sex, and for those who that message might not reach, or for those who are resilient to it, we need to protect them too,” she reasoned.
But as far as Jamaica’s Education Minister Ronald Thwaites is concerned, issuing students with contraceptives is not going to happen any time soon.
“We believe that school is a place for learning and not for sex,” he told the Sunday Observer yesterday. “School is not for the distribution of contraceptives. That is the policy and it remains.”
The alternative to that, said the minister, who is also a deacon in the Catholic church, was family life counselling for which a Health and Family Life curriculum exists.
In an address to the Commission on Population and Development, in April last year, secretary general of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon said urgent action was needed to protect young people’s right to sexual and reproductive health
“Sixteen million adolescent girls become mothers every year, and every day more than 2,000 young people contract HIV. We have a collective responsibility to drive these numbers down,” he said.
With regard to the unnamed Corporate Area school, the NFBP says it has a series of planned interventions designed to “help heal the institution and help the students move up the ladder”.
“We have approached several partners, including the University of the West Indies,” said Thomas. “This is going to be a long-term intervention or an association that the National Family Planning Board will have with the school.”
The strategies will include allowing UWI students in related subject areas to do internships and other field work at the school.
“We’re also looking at the prospect of employing some of the students during the summer and Christmas holiday periods for a stipend. They help out around the office, they get the on-the-job experience and it helps to keep them productively occupied.
The board’s Communications Officer Racquel Reece added that the NFPB would use the opportunity to implement a family life campaign.
“The approach that the board is taking is not just singular and only for that school, but we are looking at implementing different programmes to strengthen Jamaicans’ capacity to maintain good health and strong families. We’re looking at fathers, parents, adolescents in and out of school. It’s a holistic strategy,” she told the Sunday Observer.
“It’s not just about girls. How many boys are fathers that we’re not aware of? Our adolescents are in trouble because there are so many barriers hindering us from reaching them and from dealing with the issues headon,” she reiterated.
The situation at the school, said the NFPB chair, “sort of ignited us to push forward an agenda that the National Family Planning Board has [been working on]. We are going to be tackling a number of issues in a number of campaigns, and one of them is teenage pregnancy”, said Knight.
She said the country’s most recent population census showed that the population was ageing at the same time that “we have a little bulge in our population pyramid, which means we have a (large group) of young people, and we do not know what to do with them, and they are finding things to do with themselves. They are having lots of sex, they are going into crime, they are being promiscuous, and they are getting into problems, and that does not spell well for our national development. So we see this issue not only of a school or of girls, but also a problem that can affect the development of Jamaica”.
The situation also raises concerns about schools expelling students once they are found to be pregnant, or refusing to accept them once it is known they are teen mothers.
“There are many schools that do not accept mothers, that’s one thing. There are schools that expel the child as soon as she gets pregnant… Schools do not want underperforming children or children who they perceive will underperform. I think a teenaged girl with a baby will be perceived as someone who is distracted and may underperform, and religious schools don’t want to be perceived as condoning that act,” said Dr Knight.
For that reason, Dr Knight said, while the concentration of teen mothers in one school was cause for concern, she was pleased that the girls — who were said to show signs of extremely low self-esteem and limited ability to cope with difficult situations — were given the opportunity to continue their education.
“It’s very concerning to us (because) the data show that if you have a child, as a child, the chance of you completing your education and being able to be a productive adult markedly decreases. The ability to parent your child many times is impaired not only because you are a child, but many times you get kicked out of your home, many times you have issues with the other parent, and we know that these are issues that will affect the nation’s development,” Knight told the Sunday Observer.
“I really just think that we have to start thinking of these children as Jamaicans, and we must never give up on our children. I would say to our schools: don’t turn your backs on these children. They can be rehabilitated. They (schools) need to open up their arms, see how they can help, and (eliminate) the barriers like religion and the crazy competitiveness,” said Dr Knight.
The implications of teenage pregnancy on national development are not lost on the NFPB and, according to the outreach director, realisation of the 2030 development goals are at risk.
“If we have a generation that is coming up, that is struggling with situations such as this and many other situations, we are not going to realise what it is we want in, say, another 30 years,” said Thomas.
“The fact of the matter is that we have to tackle this now. Among these young persons who we would love to see get a second chance and go back into school there is tremendous potential. Giving them the information and giving them access to products will help to stem a second pregnancy. When you don’t give them those options you’re leaving them in the open,” she said.
