Trinidad's Education Minister decries rate of teenage pregnancy

Trinidad’s Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh says many men are getting away with statutory rape given that more than 2,500 teenage pregnancies are reported annually.



Gopeesingh says most of the teenagers had become pregnant for fathers who were between the ages of 25 and 40 and that some of the mothers were below age 12.



The Education Minister told legislators in the Senate that research by the Faculty of Medical Science of the University of the West Indies showed that by age 19, more than 1,000 young women already had four children.



Gopeesingh, who is a gynaecologist, describes the situation as frightening saying that for every 15 new patients in the ante-natal clinics, 10 were teenagers.



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