By Amina Evangelista Swanepoel and Kate Peters
In the quest to improve the country’s health, young people cannot be ignored. Decision makers must rethink how they engage with youth in order to better address their needs. Why? Because young people make up nearly 25% of the global population, and that percentage continues to grow.
Palawan is no exception. Look around. Teenagers are everywhere, especially in malls and public spaces like Bakers Hill, Mendoza Park and Baywalk. You probably spend many of your weekends at a young person’s birthday party or binyag. And sadly, you probably see young moms holding their new babies or their growing pregnant bellies.
At a meeting on adolescent health last year, one of the participants claimed that despite the high rates of teen pregnancy in the Philippines, it’s not as bad as in western countries because their youth are more frequently exposed to scandalous images, messaging, and are part of more liberal cultures.
This made me wonder, do western countries have higher rates of teenage pregnancy compared to the Philippines?
I looked to the global and country data to answer this question.
As a starting point, according to the Philippines Statistic Authority, 10% of girls in the Philippines between the ages of 15 and 19 are pregnant or already mothers.
According to the World Health Organization, about 6 million girls aged 15 to 19 and some 1 million girls under 15 give birth every year—most in low- and middle-income countries (the Philippines is amongst this group). This translates into fewer years of school for the young moms; worse educational and financial outcomes for the whole family; and a continued cycle of poverty for the entire community.
Now, let’s compare these stats with the United States, the country with some of the worst adolescent pregnancy indicators amongst developed countries. The US Center for Disease Control reports that there were 229,715 babies born to adolescents aged 15-19 in 2015, which makes up about 2.2% of this particular age group in the US. Not only is this a record low, it’s also an 8% drop from the year before. Colleagues from the Guttmacher Institute, a global leader in global reproductive health research, note that these long-term declines in adolescent pregnancies are likely due to improved access and use of contraceptives.
European countries have also seen a steady decline in adolescent pregnancy over the years. Countries like Ireland saw 17% of their 15-19 year olds pregnant in 2004, however, according to Eurostats, 10 years later this percentage had dropped to 9%. Another predominantly Catholic country, Portugal, experienced over a 10% decrease in adolescent pregnancy between the years 2004-2014 amongst this same age group. The decreasing rates of adolescent pregnancies can be attributed to the two countries’ comprehensive sexuality education programs in schools, access to contraception for women of all ages and, on average, more years of schooling for young women.
So to the person I overhead in the meeting, and to people that worry about “scandalous” messaging that encourages Western youth to engage in risky sexual behavior, the data do not support your claims. We have a worse problem of teen pregnancy here. And we need to tackle the question, why is the Philippines experiencing an increase in adolescent pregnancy over time, not a decrease?
The Philippines has the highest rate of adolescent pregnancy in South East Asia. And again, Palawan is no exception. Proportionately, we’re seeing even higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the national average. According to 2016 data from the Provincial Department of Health, there were 2,724 adolescent pregnancies recorded in Palawan, which is over a 300% increase from the 2012 data.
Roots of Health works to address women’s and adolescent reproductive health needs. To better understand the young people that we serve, we conducted a survey of over 900 young Puerto Princesa residents last year. The survey respondents were between the ages of 14 and 24, there was an almost equal number of young women and young men, and a majority of the respondents (70%) were still in school. What we learned was fascinating. Nearly 80% of the respondents noted that they had had, or were in, a relationship at some point in their life. Over a third (37%) of the respondents had had sexual intercourse. The mean age for sexual debut amongst female and male respondents was 16.8, and the average number of sexual partners was between one and three.
What really stunned us is what we analyzed next: contraceptive use, experience with pregnancy and sexuality education. Only one in three (33%) sexually experienced youth reported using a condom during their latest sexual encounter. Although we commend those young people that use condoms and are taking steps to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy, condoms are often times not used correctly and consistently and many people that use them are still at risk. Further, of the 51% of youth that reported using any form of contraception during their last sexual encounter, a larger percentage of male youth reported having used some form of contraception, compared to female youth. This validates what we learned next about experiences with pregnancy.
Of the female youth that participated in this survey, 40% reported that they had been pregnant at some point in their life. This number is staggering. This means that two out of the five young women interviewed had to potentially stop their studies, become responsible for an infant while they themselves were still young and be exposed to realities that they weren’t developmentally prepared for.
Based on our understanding of the problem, and what the data shows us, young people need better access to youth-friendly reproductive health services and comprehensive sexuality education in school. Roughly half of the survey respondents noted that they would have liked more sexuality and reproductive health classes in school. Abstinence-only sexuality education doesn’t stop our young people from having sex and only puts them at higher-risk for contracting infections and becoming pregnant.
By supporting and educating our young people, we are investing in the future of the Philippines. We need to start seeing declines in our growing rates of adolescent pregnancy, not increases. To improve our country’s future, we must help our young people protect themselves. And that means acknowledging reality and working towards improving outcomes, not denying that we have a problem.
We’ll be releasing more of the findings from our Adolescent Reproductive Health Survey in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!