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Every day in Argentina, one hundred babies are born to adolescents who did not plan their pregnancy

2022-09-21T23:56:48.758Z


A campaign seeks to involve men in the prevention of unwanted pregnancies "He was going to leave her, but she got pregnant and hooked him," Francisco says when telling friends at a barbecue that he is going to be a grandfather. Francisco, a 39-year-old Argentine, talks about his son, 19, and his girlfriend, 18. He attributes the responsibility for this unintended pregnancy to the woman, a pattern that repeats itself over and over again and with which he seeks to break t


"He was going to leave her, but she got pregnant and hooked him," Francisco says when telling friends at a barbecue that he is going to be a grandfather.

Francisco, a 39-year-old Argentine, talks about his son, 19, and his girlfriend, 18. He attributes the responsibility for this unintended pregnancy to the woman, a pattern that repeats itself over and over again and with which he seeks to break the latest campaign to prevent unwanted pregnancies in adolescents in Argentina.

According to official data, they are seven out of ten.

“The percentage of pibas [girls] who report not having sought pregnancy at that time is still 70%, which has to do with a lot of variables, one of them is negotiating the contraceptive method with the person who is about to having sex at that time”, said the director of Adolescence and Youth of the Ministry of Health of the Nation, Juan Carlos Escobar, in the presentation of the campaign launched this Wednesday.

According to Escobar, the campaign targets heterosexual men for the first time "because they have a 50% weight when it comes to preventing unintended pregnancy."

The theory does not coincide with practice in a country where the majority of the responsibility for contraception falls on women, "both adolescents and adults," says Mabel Bianco, head of the Foundation for the Study and Research of Women (FEIM). .

The number of teenage pregnancies has been declining over the last five years.

In 2020, about 53,000 children under the age of 20 were mothers in Argentina, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

A year earlier, they were close to 70,000.

However, unintentional pregnancies did not decrease neither in young people between 15 and 19 years old -70%- nor in those under 15 years old, 85%.

In the case of the latter, the majority of girl pregnancies are the result of situations of sexual abuse and rape.

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“The number of pregnancies decreases because there are groups that have more access to information, but there remains a significant number of children and adolescents who do not have that access.

Comprehensive sex education is mandatory in all schools, but it is not enforced, not all of them give it”, says Bianco about the obstacles to preventing unwanted pregnancies.

This doctor also recalls that Argentine legislation contemplates the right of adolescents to be advised and have access to contraceptive methods, but there are health care centers where they are denied if they are not accompanied by an adult.

In case they have not used any contraceptive or it fails, they also have the right to terminate their pregnancy, since abortion has been legal in Argentina since the end of 2020. Once again, the implementation of the law is not complete and information is lacking, according to the head of FEIM, the NGO that heads the #I can decide campaign.

The Argentine Ministry of Health warns that early motherhood is among the main causes of school dropout.

Without a high school diploma —and even more so in the case of primary school— adolescent girls have much more difficulty entering the labor market and seeking quality, well-paid jobs.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-09-21

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