In Perú, 1 out of every 4 habitants is an adolescent or young person between 10 and 24 years old. This population is the basis of a demographic bonus whose window of opportunity will close in just over 20 years. The adolescent and young population of the country and the region face challenges in developing their potential. The social observance of stereotypes and roles in girls, adolescents, and young women promotes gender inequalities that limit their autonomy and their rights to comprehensive sexual education, sexual and reproductive health, and a life free of violence without discriminatory and harmful practices such as child unions and marriages.
Consequently, the occurrence of pregnancies and early motherhood frequently arise, restricting the continuity of the education of girls and adolescents, constituting a barrier to the development of their psychosocial skills and competencies, and hindering the possibilities of successfully completing their academic goals and achieving their life projects with better employment and economic opportunities.
Every year, around 50,000 girls and adolescents up to the age of 19 are mothers in Peru. In 2020, 1,158 minors between 10 and 14 years old experienced maternity, an aspect that increased in 2021 to 1,437 equivalent to 24%. Even more unfortunate was the episode experienced by 23 girls under the age of 10 who were forced to become mothers in the same year, according to preliminary figures from the Ministry of Health's Live Birth Certificate online. According to the Peruvian legal system, births to girls under 15 years of age would be the result of rape crimes.
Dashboard on teenage pregnancy and marriage in Peru
UNFPA Country Office in Peru, in line with its Country Program 2022-2026, has developed a dashboard with the purpose of generating awareness, through data from different official sources, of the situational status of pregnancy in girls and adolescents in the different regions of the country.
The dashboard is a digital board, freely accessible through the Internet, that collects information from all regions of Perú, even reaching provincial levels in some cases, under a series of indicators segmented into two age ranges: from 10 to 14 years old and from 15 to 19 years. In an intuitive and dynamic way, the visitor will be able to consult this information that aims to make visible the occurrence of this phenomenon that affects thousands of girls and adolescents who deal daily with the challenge of facing an unintentional pregnancy or forced motherhood and who are exposed to risks of illness and death and transmit intergenerational poverty with high opportunity costs for society.
Opinion leaders, public policymakers, congressmen and other state officials, members of international cooperation, journalists and opinion leaders, students and professionals dedicated to research are invited to use this dashboard not only for informational purposes but as a source of consultation and foundation to generate action and response in the territories in the face of the serious problem of adolescent pregnancy and maternity in Peru.
Dashboard Link >> https://peru.unfpa.org/es/mapa-embarazo-y-maternidad-adolescentes-peru
Some data to consider:
- In 2021 every day there were 4 births in girls from 10 to 14 years old.
- In 2021, every hour there were 5 births in adolescents aged 15 to 19
- Between the 2007 and 2017 censuses, the percentage of adolescents aged 15 to 19 who were pregnant for the first time increased in 14 departments of the country.
- 3 out of 4 of the pregnancies in adolescents between 15 and 19 years old were not intentional or planned at the moment of conception, that is, 75%.
For more information or interviews: Renato Zeballos - zeballos@unfpa.org
