TEEN PREGNANCY BY:BONGCAWIL, A.J.A.

   

  The Philippines is one of the countries which has the highest teen pregnancy rates in Asia. It is second in Southeast Asia based on Save the Children's Global Childhood Report (2019) and affects about 5.99 percent of Filipino girls. According to Philippine Statistical Authority (2017) there is an estimate of 538 babies born to Filipino teenage mothers every single day.

    Teen pregnancy is something that we need to address carefully. It is something that might be blamed unto the ones who are affected of it, but, truth is, it is something that is a result of the lack of education and early marriage due to poverty. As teens marry at a young age they may have the tendency of being victims of sexual violence especially if they lack information about their sexual and health rights and the pressure of proving their fertility.

    I think that as a Filipino what the government needs to do is to higher our age of consent which is 12, as children who might be victims of rape and sexual violence may increase, as the perpetrators might have the mentality that they will not be punished by the law as children of age 12 are not subjected to rape but child exploitations only.

    As years pass many children will still be subjected to teen pregnancies and the stigma will still grow greater. We need to remember that the future is something that’s still far away but once it is tainted it’ll never be brought back to how it once was and stigmatizing a victim will never help them in any way.