By allowing adolescents legal access to sexual and reproductive information and services, investing in education, training health staff, and establishing health facilities dedicated to adolescents, Jamaica achieved a 57.2% reduction in adolescent fertility between 2000 and 2021, the largest in the region.
By contrast, in the same period, Grenada held firm to traditional legal restrictions, focused on punishing perpetrators, made little investment in information and services to adolescents, kept health staff handcuffed, and achieved the lowest reduction of adolescent pregnancy in the region, 29.6%. That is barely more than half of what Jamaica accomplished.
We can continue to do what we have always done and make little or no progress. Our preference is to punish perpetrators, to put a millstone around their necks and throw them into the sea as Bishop Devon Rachae suggested, correctly citing Matthew 18:6.
Or we can set out to learn from others in our region who have adopted a different path and realised enormous reductions in their adolescent fertility rate — Bermuda, Aruba, British Virgin Islands, Martinique, Guadeloupe, The Bahamas, and Jamaica.
Changing the law is only one necessary component. It creates access and space. Then the real work must begin.
What those countries have done is not a miracle. They’ve allowed legal access to adolescents. They have developed culturally sensitive, age-appropriate, comprehensive sexuality education curricula. They have created health facilities specifically for adolescents. They have trained health professionals in those facilities to work with adolescents. But most of all, they have broken the silence and empowered adolescents.
We should capitalise on the public discourse, however flawed, that has emerged from the government’s ACR Bill. Above all, it is a wonderful opportunity to engage with our children, our teachers, and our religious and community leaders in finally learning to speak openly about the sexual atrocities and anxieties our adolescents endure.
Too many of us have denied or ignored this reality and avoided if not abandoned our responsibilities as parents and civic leaders. In this regard, the current lively discussion about the Age of Civil Responsibility Bill is a blessing.
Sincerely,
Tonia Frame, President, Grenada Planned Parenthood Association (GPPA)
Fred Nunes, Consultant, Advocates for Safe Parenthood: Improving Reproductive Equity (ASPIRE)
This article touches the surface of one of the problems facing us. A lot has changed over the years including a chance for children to return to mainstream school after pregnancy or committing minor crimes. One might argue that this can contribute to a breakdown in discipline. What it does is to create the opportunity for better parenting. The challenge might be great but better preparation of teachers and social workers and parents will definitely reduce the numbers involved in sex before marriage. The age of marriage is sixteen with permission and twenty one legally. We are caught up with sex and not focusing on why people have sex. To think extremely sex is a commodity. It is used by ALL for economic gains or power. What has to be taught is how to use sex to benefit your health and your wealth.