Wednesday 8 June 2016

Pregnancies at an attrocious age

 


I had an interesting yet saddening conversation yesterday evening with a local girl who attends our adult/youth English classes. Making conversation she asked me if I had siblings, where my parents live etc...before moving onto (switching into Spanish too) 'tienes hijos usted?' I was surprised she asked me if I had children (considering she knew my age - twenty) however I knew that here in Honduras that wouldn't be at all abnormal for them. That being, a twenty-year-old who's already a father. In fact, within some areas it's probably considered almost 'abnormal' if not...

I told her that within Europe people tend to have children later on. She stated the contrary saying that within the area many girls - as young as eleven - are mothers. I asked her what she thought about that with her response being 'bueno, eso lo que hay' - meaning 'it is how it is'. It's a crying shame I feel that so many young Honduran girls I've met are already mothers. Truly, the majority of girls from fifteen to twenty all have at least one child.

The girl doesn't have any children herself and told me she wants to wait until past twenty five or so, once she's actually in a position to support a child. Before the eye-opening chat came to an end she recounted me a story of how a friend of hers (a pregnant eleven-year-old) actually died giving birth. Something of a national crisis one might argue, surely some kind of education programme needs putting in place or something similar to combat such an alarming young rate of pregnancies...



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