| In Mexico, 1,000 Adolescents Become Mothers Every Day LaJornada | |
| go to original September 5, 2022 |
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Every day, a thousand girls and adolescents in Mexico become mothers, which impacts their quality of life and their educational and economic opportunities. This is a public problem "with serious individual, social and intergenerational consequences", warned specialists.
At the presentation of the report Early Pregnancy in Mexico, Panorama de Estrategias Públicas y Análisis de la Estrategia para la Prevención del Embarazo en Adolescentes (Enapea), prepared by El Colegio de México (Colmex), they assured that this phenomenon is related to social inequalities and gender violence.
Gabriela Rodríguez, general secretary of the National Population Council (Conapo), emphasized that it took 50 years for the adolescent fertility rate to drop from 134.6 to 67.7 births per thousand adolescents.
Accompanied by the president of Colmex, Silvia Giorguli, she explained that the serious effects of teenage pregnancy include the fact that in 2020, 8,876 births were reported to mothers under 14 years of age. Of these, 60 percent were united with the father, while only 13.4 percent managed to continue their studies.
The report on early pregnancy in Mexico, in which specialists in gender and inequality issues, Laura Flamand, Juan Olmeda, Vanessa Arvizu, Melisa González and Geraldine del Cid collaborated, indicates that governments and society must guarantee the exercise of the sexual and reproductive rights of adolescents, both in population groups and in the territory.
They added that this is a phenomenon that most seriously affects adolescent women living in poverty and in rural areas, and is 1.6 times more frequent in indigenous adolescents than in those who define themselves as non-indigenous.
In addition, adolescent mothers have three times fewer opportunities to obtain a university degree, find a job or improve their living conditions.
The researchers considered that in order to achieve its goals, "it is urgent that Enapea reaffirms its rights-based approach, trains people to participate in its implementation and strengthens its intersectoral and intergovernmental actions."
They recalled that the problem of early pregnancy in Mexico is diverse in its territory, not only by entity, but also by municipality. The highest adolescent fertility rates in the country are reported in Guerrero and Chiapas, but also in northern regions (Chihuahua and Coahuila); in the center (Puebla and Tlaxcala) and in the south (Tabasco), which demands better levels of coordination.
Read the rest at NoticiasPV
Related: Stress During Pregnancy May Have a Negative Emotional Impact on Babies, Study Finds (CNN)
Related: Mexfam Supports the Decriminalisation of Abortion in Mexico (IPPF)
Related: Girls From 10 to 19 Years Old Disappear the Most in Mexico (PVDN)
This article was translated from Spanish using AI technologies. Errors may exist due to this process.
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