As a believer in pro-choice and proponent of high budgets for public education I want to share some perspectives and information about teenage pregnancy around the world.


I find that these issues have even greater moral significance as we explore different situations from around the world. Please leave comments!

11-Year-Old Girl From Colombia's Wayuu Tribe Gives Birth, Government At Odds With Tribal Mores


An 11 year-old Colombian girl gave birth last week to a daughter. The baby was born via C-section and is reportedly in healthy condition. During her pregnancy, the young girl never consulted with a doctor according to the video report by Univision's Primer Impacto.

The 11 year-old mother belongs to the Wayuu tribe, an indigenous group from the La Guajira Peninsula in the northern region of Colombia and Venezuela. She's originally from the city of Manaure.

“We've already seen similar cases of wayuu girls," said Efraín Pacheco Casadiego the director of the hospital where the girl gave birth, to RCN La Radio noticias, a Colombian radio station. "At a time when (the girls) should be playing with dolls, they go to having to take care of a baby. It's shocking."

The Colombian constitution guarantees the Wayuu land and autonomy, and allows for the indigenous tribe to maintain their own sovereignty.

"Since it's a Wayuu girl we are trying to respect all of their rights since they have autonomy and their own jurisdiction," said Alejandro Samplayo, director of Instituto Colombiano Bienestar Familiar, an organization similar to the U.S.'s Planned Parenthood.

Little information has been reported about the baby’s father who has remained anonymous. And, according to Primer Impacto, nobody in the indigenous community is willing to speak about the circumstances of the birth.


ADDRESSING TEEN PREGNANCY AROUND THE WORLD:

PERU

Lima, PERU: Members of a NGO dressed up as condoms take part of a public awareness campaign about the consequences of unwanted pregnancy, 17 August 2006 in Lima. AFP PHOTO/Eitan ABRAMOVICH (Photo credit should read EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/Getty Images)

VENEZUELA

Mothers and their newborns rest in a maternity center in Caracas, on December 15, 2011. According to the World Health Organization, Venezuela holds the first place in South America in cases of early pregnancy, with about 1,500 children born daily from teenage mothers aged between 12 and 19 years. AFP PHOTO / Leo RAMIREZ (Photo credit should read LEO RAMIREZ/AFP/Getty Images)

MALAYSIA

The staff of a newly established school for pregnant teenagers holds a meeting inside a prayer room inside a hostel for students in Jasin town, some 33 kilometers away from Malaysia's port city Malacca, on September 17, 2010. Malacca state established a school for pregnant teenagers to curb an alarming epidemic of 'baby dumping'. Authorities in Muslim-majority Malaysia are grappling with the rising numbers of abandoned infants, often dumped dead or dying in the streets or on rubbish dumps. AFP PHOTO/ Saeed KHAN (Photo credit should read SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images)

GERMANY

Teenage girls of the Georg-Ackermann-School in Breitenbach Breuberg, western Germany, practice on May 25, 2009 in their classroom the handling of a newborn baby with a baby-simulation-doll. The young girls will be in constant contact with the baby-simulators over the next few days. The doll hides a complex computer system, which realistically imitates the behaviour of a baby and controls the reaction of the 'parents'. With this project, the information centre for pregnancy, family and sexuality wants to avoid unwanted teenager pregnancies and tries to create an awareness for the responsibility of a child within adolescents. AFP PHOTO DDP/ TORSTEN SILZ GERMANY OUT (Photo credit should read TORSTEN SILZ/AFP/Getty Images)

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