IMPACT IN OUR COUNTRY

According to the Pan American Health Organization, over 20% of girls aged 12 to 19 in the Dominican Republic have experienced pregnancy. It’s hard to give an exact time when the teenage pregnancy issue started in the Dominican Republic, but it has been going on for decades. Some of the reasons that cause this problem come along with the history and culture, one of them is the poverty in the country since the poverty rate of the country is 23.20% in 2021 with a 0% increase in 2020. This doesn't mean that the middle class doesn’t get pregnant, but the common places to see girls pregnant are in the most low income locations of the country, the hospitals are full of these girls. Another reason is lack of education, it’s not surprising that in this country many teenage doesn’t go to school, compared with the United States when kids don’t show up to class for a couple of times, the school report to the police and they appear in that person’s house, in the dominican republic there’s no direct connection between the police department and the education system. Many adolescents in the country don’t go to school at all or just repeat the year many times. Which gives a brief understanding on how things work in The Dominican Republic. On the other hand, there’s no sex education in school, supposedly because of religion. They are a community of religious people that when they see this topic popping up they are against it since it’s promoting this behavior, when nobody needs to promote it because it’s a reality. They even have a subject called “moral y cívica” but not a formal sex education class to provide information about sex protection, STDs, and other topics related.