Venezuela has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America

The Venezuelan Association for Alternative Sexual Education (AVESA) reported that Venezuela has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America with 84.6 cases per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19.

According to Sputnik, Mercedes Muñoz, president of the board of directors of Avesa, said that “Venezuela is the country with the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in South America and the third highest on the continent.”

For Muñoz, this alarming figure is due to numerous factors, both cultural and economic crisis. “There is a cultural issue of women, what we call motherhood as destiny, there is a cultural learning that women are first mothers than women,” she said.

The expert said that the high cost of living in the country and the lack of sexual education in the public system are factors that influence this. “In Venezuela, boxes of 21 contraceptive pills can cost between 10 and 15 dollars and condoms up to 5 dollars.”

“A single condom costs $1.50, which is enough to buy breakfast. How can teenagers buy condoms? And there are no family planning centres,” she added.

She also warned that many times the parents of babies conceived by teenagers are adults, which might mean acceptance of sexual abuse. “No one stops to think regarding who the parents of these babies are. Are they their peers? No, they are adults, and sometimes they are 25 or 30 years older than them,” she said.

Given this, Venezuela has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the region with 259.2 deaths per 100,000 live births, in first place is Haiti (350.4) according to data from the Pan American Health Organization in 2020.

“There is no justification for the deaths because there is no reason for women to die from pregnancy and childbirth in 2024. The only reason is that the services are not being efficient, and when we talk regarding this, we are talking regarding women’s right to life. It is an obligation of the State, which has to create the institutions or supervise them,” Muñoz stressed.