The Hindu Women’s Organisation of T&T (HWO) notes with great interest the suggestion made by Mr Sat Maharaj that “Government needs to look at the age at which young people engage in sexual activity, as opposed to minors marrying.” This recommendation was made in response to comments by Chief Justice Ivor Archie at the NGC Bocas Literary Festival’s panel on human rights at the National Library on May 30, 2016.
Our membership agrees with Mr Maharaj that sexual activity involving children needs to be urgently addressed.
In November 2011, shortly after former prime minister Kamla Persad–Bissessar opened the discussion at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia, the HWO commenced its advocacy aimed at changing the legislation. By May 2013, our organisation presented a petition with close to 1,000 signatures to former legal affairs minister Prakash Ramadhar at the Ministry of Legal Affairs, Port-of-Spain.
The HWO engaged in public discussions on the issue and became fully aware of the ill effects of teenage pregnancy, the fact that adult men were preying on minors, and the adverse impact of early marriage on the health and education of teenage girls.
Gayatri Pargass, human rights lawyer attached to the Ministry of Gender, Culture and Youth Affairs, while discussing the contradictions in the various marriage acts of T&T, noted that “on the one hand, the age of consent for sexual relations under the Sexual Offences Act was 16 years (at that time) but it was right for girls and boys under the age of 16 to marry and have sex.”
At another public discussion, Dr Mark Robinson described teenage pregnancies as “a national disaster.” He revealed that around 100 girls under 16 gave birth every month at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. He did not give the figure for the number of botched abortions that presented for the same period.
Dr Vidya Maharaj, obstetrician/gynaecologist and District Medical Officer for St George East, explored the adverse medical effects of teenage pregnancies.
Research findings shared at these discussions are well documented in our publication 16 Days of Activism 2014: November 25–December 10: Campaigning for Change of the Marriage Acts of T&T & Policy Statements on Gay Rights, Abortion & HIV/Aids.
In February 2014, former education minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh informed Parliament of over 2,500 annual births to teenage mothers, a rate of approximately 15 per cent of live births annually. He added that most of these teenage pregnancies were for fathers in the 25 to 40-year age group. Further, he said research at the UWI Faculty of Medical Science had showed that by age 19, more than 1,000 young women already had four children. Gopeesingh said based on his 27 years as a gynaecologist working in the public sector, for every 15 new patients in the antenatal clinics, ten were teenagers.
So the issue of children engaging in sexual activity is not a new one and has attracted the attention of regional and national bodies.
In 2011 Caribbean Co-operation in Health identified the reduction of adolescent pregnancy as a priority to be addressed by member states. Consequently, a multi-disciplinary Regional Task Force was formed.
In outlining timelines to achieve specific goals, the UNFPA (United Nations Family Planning Association) identified the critical need for partnerships at the national level to facilitate the reduction of births to teenage mothers.
The Family Planning Association of T&T has publicly identified “the need for collaboration among key stakeholders in the field of sexual and reproductive health as they seek to remove the negativity and sensationalism surrounding sexual health and treat it as a social concern which necessitates a mature societal and collaborative response.”
In September 2014, the Caricom Council for Human and Social Development approved a Strategic Plan to reduce the number of adolescent pregnancies occurring in each country of the English and Dutch speaking Caribbean by at least 20 per cent over the period 2014 to 2019.
A major component of this thrust is to ensure that “by 2019, all adolescent girls and boys have access to age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education (at least by the age of ten) as included in national school curricula implemented in all schools, and through informal education modalities for those adolescents not in schools.”
Failure to introduce age-appropriate sexuality education in schools rests with religious bodies, all of which reject the recommendation outright.
What recourse is there other than to put age-appropriate sexuality education on the schools’ curricula to be taught in as sensitive and factual a manner as possible? Failure to introduce the subject may serve to increase the percentage of live births to teenage mothers that T&T witnesses annually. What alternatives are there? Co-operation and input from religious organisations are essential for positive outcomes but word from agencies charged with strategising for a reduction in youth sexual activity is that they are facing constant opposition from religious bodies.
Laws that permit the marriage of young girls with parental consent in cases where the male is several years her senior is in reality permitting statutory rape or child abuse. Such oppressive laws cannot be allowed to remain on the statute books.
Hindu Women’s Organisation of T&T