Trinidad: 3 primary school student pregnancies in last 5 years

By Stabroek News On In Trinidad & Tobago News |
Three primary school students have gotten pregnant in the last five years.
Three primary school students have gotten pregnant in the last five years.

(Trinidad Guardian) Among the some 3,577 re­port­ed cas­es of teenage preg­nan­cies be­tween 2014 and March 2019, three were pri­ma­ry school stu­dents.

The rev­e­la­tion was made by the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher’s As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Raf­fiena Ali-Boodoos­ingh Wednes­day dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee in­quiry on teenage preg­nan­cies.

The rev­e­la­tion comes just a few days be­fore a Siparia stu­dent is due to give birth af­ter be­ing raped.

The NPTA pres­i­dent was cit­ing Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion sta­tis­tics.

The ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion Dona Da Cos­ta Mar­tinez said sta­tis­tics in­di­cat­ed that 60 per cent of teens were sex­u­al­ly ac­tive by age 16.

She said many teens have come to the as­so­ci­a­tion al­ready hav­ing had an abor­tion done.

Most of the 3,577 teenage preg­nan­cies were in Port-of-Spain.