Advocating for the continued investment in teenage girls as one way to elevate them out of a life of poverty and ensure they do not fall prey to the societal ills which abound today, Reema Carmona says there is a dire need for critical support systems to help teenage mothers and their children fulfill their aspirations and ambitions.
Delivering the feature address in commemoration of World Population Day yesterday, it was a confident sounding Carmona who declared, "We need community social work programmes devised in such a way to identify at-risk children from as early as birth, so as to prevent all forms of violence and sexual abuse."
Highlighting this year's theme of "Investing in Teenage Girls" as she addressed a packed audience at the Little Carib Theatre, Woodbrook - Carmona expressed grave concern that teenage girls "run the risk of not fulfilling their God-given talents, aspirations and ambitions in the Caribbean and worldwide."
Admitting that the world was now a very complicated place ravaged by mass migration issues, racial and religious wars, human trafficking, HIV/AIDS, as well as climate and environmental changes, Carmona said the number of forcibly displaced people had risen to a record number of 60 million at the end of 2014.
Referring to last year's theme of "Vulnerable Populations in Emergencies" which highlighted the special needs of women and adolescent girls during conflicts and humanitarian disasters, Carmona said it was a powerful reminder that female empowerment and equality had to be addressed in the continuing midst of the crisis that is adolescent pregnancy.
She said the issue of adolescent pregnancy coupled with the factors of abuse including sexual exploitation, violence and enforced child marriage was a crisis which would continue to threaten the future and well-being of young girls and women.
Carmona said it was up to the authorities, including business and civil society groups, parents, teachers, schools, the community and the United Nations Population Fund to "Do something about it."
Confirming that adolescent pregnancy continued to be a bar to the aspirations and self-realisation of teenage girls, Carmona said statistics revealed that the Caribbean and Latin America was reported to have the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy globally.
Overcoming barriers
Claiming that any investment in women generally would trigger growth and a positive return in the future, Carmona said, "In the Caribbean, poverty, lack of opportunity and education account for part of the main reasons behind this scourge of pregnancy among our teenage girls."
She went on, "While it is not always the case, the teenage girl who grows up with money and opportunity will likely go on to university and onto the job market, while the girl who has grown up in nothing but poverty, hunger, deprivation and an unsafe environment is more likely at risk of pregnancy than her middle to upper class counterpart."
Seeking to drive home her point, Carmona added, "These are just the stark realities in our society. Wealth though, does not prevent the emergence of an adolescent mother."
She warned, "We must not however, generalize this social issue of adolescent pregnancy on the basis of class and economics."
Harking back to an earlier speech in 2015 during which she had spoken of the impact of social media, Carmona repeated her warning of the influences of reality television where promiscuous sexual practices and irresponsible behaviour were widely promoted, condoned and endorsed.
She said, "These are the types of non-traditional factors that permeate our Caribbean and Latin American culture and can negatively impact life decisions that our adolescents make. In this age of internet and camera phones, reality shows are but only one of the many breeding grounds for unhealthy sexual practices and pitfalls among our adolescents."
Acknowledging that we lived in an endless world of “smart” technology, the president's wife said parents had the most important role of all.
"As parents, if we are not ourselves smart about monitoring and restricting our children’s use of social media, our children will outsmart us. We will be left to clean up the mess of premature and irresponsible sexual practices among our young people. We no longer can simply hope for the best, leaving it up to the teachers in the schools or the church. Parents must be vigilant to ensure that their teenage girls do not fall prey to the roaming predators that exist in cyber space", Carmona said.