Mother at 16. Info-Prim Neo analysis

As many as 346 teenage girls younger than 16 have became mothers in 2006-2010. However, the number of underage girls who got pregnant is much higher than the official statistics show. ”Given the reality in the Moldovan society, when we have a large number of private clinics and a high rate of corruption as well as parents who are ready to mutilate their children only to escape ‘shame’, we will not know the real number of teenage girls who became pregnant and had an abortion because they wanted or were obliged to,” said Lilia Gorceac, psychologist of the Center of Assistance and Protection for Victims of Trafficking in Human Beings and Potential Victims. The State of the World’s Children Report 2011 produced by UNICEF shows that about 3,000 adolescents became pregnant in 2009. Each tenth abortion in 2009 was supported by a teenage girl aged between 15 and 19. According to Lilia Corceac, most of the girls in Moldova do not know the basic rules for safe sex. The young people do not know what its rape, incest and molestation and what consequences the sexual games can have. There are cases when the girls are surprised that they became pregnant after only one sexual intercourse. Galina Leshko, a gynecologist-obstetrician at the Youth-Friendly Health Center “Neovita”, said mothers with pregnant adolescents come to the Center and ask that the pregnancy be ended, asserting simultaneously that they love their children and would do everything for their wellbeing. ”The girl is already stressed and if the family does not provide support, she finds herself in a very unpleasant situation. It may seem strange, but the communication with the father does much better to the girls than the discussions only with the mother. Having friendly relations with the fathers, the girls feel themselves protected and do not look for another kind of affection from other men,” said Galina Leshko. In Moldova, the underage girls who give birth and other categories of women who may abandon their newborn babies can be helped at one of the six national maternal centers that were opened with the support of the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family and are now managed by the local public authorities. The guardianship is another problem in the case of children born by underage mothers. As the mother is under guardianship until the age of 18, the question arises as to who should be the guardian of the newborn. Galina Leshko said the teenage girls usually became pregnant after a relation with older boys, who are mainly mature and can be imprisoned for having sexual relations with minor girls. The young men do not know the legislation and what they face if they have such relations, while the underage girls do not know the methods of preventing unwanted pregnancies and of avoiding sexually transmissible diseases. [The lowest median age at first birth] According to the State of the World’s Children Report 2011, the lowest median age at the first birth in South and Central Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States is in Moldova – 22 years and a half, though it has increased over the last ten years. The number of children born by mothers from the 15-19 age bracket is also high in Moldova – 28.7 cases per 1 000 newborns. ”During the two years since foundation, our center provided services for 11 pregnant underage girls. Only two of them decided to give birth, while the rest had an abortion. The 11 girls are from socially underprivileged families that encounter education problems and are from rural areas,” said coordinator of the day Psychosocial Center Nadejda Mocanu. Galina Leshko, of the Youth-Friendly Health Center “Neovita”, said the number of underage mothers in Moldova is not higher than the previous years, but it remains constant and measures are needed to prevent the appearance of other cases of the kind. ”Unpleasant things happen in our country. If a teenage girl gets pregnant in a settlement, she is expelled from school in order to avoid problems and explanations. Intensive sex education starts and the girls are taken by force to the gynecologist where the doctor sees if they are virgins or not. But this is not right. We cannot avoid teenage pregnancies by doing forced examinations when a colleague becomes pregnant,” said Galina Leshko. [The informed young people are better protected] Only half of the young people aged between 15 and 18 who filled out the UNICEF questionnaire said they discussed sexual development issues with their parents and only 1/3 were informed how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. “This points to the necessity of introducing a life habits and health education course in schools,” says the report. The young persons in rural areas do not have the same access to information about the sexual life as those in urban areas. “The Moldovan young people do not have basic knowledge about the sexual life and the possible consequences of unprotected sex. A training course about family life would be welcome as ignorance causes problems. Those who are in power and even the Church prefer that we have an uninformed society as an informed person cannot be easily manipulated,” said Galina Leshko. She also said that the young people are not supervised by the adults. Many parents work abroad and do not often communicate with their children. They send money to them, but cannot correctly educate them. Liliana Gorceac, psychologist of the Center of Assistance and Protection for Victims of Trafficking in Human Beings and Potential Victims, is convinced that a sexual education course can help the underage girls to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and sexual diseases. According to the State of the World’s Children Report 2011, the median age at the first sexual experience in Moldova is 16. The start of the sexual risk is accompanied by increased risks as only 8.3% of the young people know the methods by which the diseases are sexually transmitted. Studies show the young people whose parents talk to them about sex and who have appropriate sources of information begin the sexual life 1-2 years later than those who are not correctly informed. They are also less exposed to the risk of getting a sexually transmitted disease or becoming pregnant, in the case of girls. [Mariana Galben, Info-Prim Neo]