By Sarah Oxford
“Yes, it did!” She argued adamantly, catching me off guard. “The baby, whoosh, came right out. I have a baby!” She moved her hands between her legs and then put one hand onto her belly as she looked at me with a cheeky smile that reflected a combination of precociousness and innocence. “No. No you don’t.” I responded dryly, not giving her an inch, but trying to be gentle at the same time. “Yes, I do. What? Do you think it’s bad to have a baby at 15?” Her voice became sassy and even more aggressive. The gauntlet had been thrown. “No” I responded, “But you don’t have a baby. You aren’t 15.” I considered my tone making an effort to not sound disapproving. “Yes, I do. And yes, I am.” The back and forth was starting to get tiring. “You're lying. I don't know why, but you are lying to me.” I said, cutting off the debate. She started to laugh, “OK I’m lying!” Her eyes opened wide searching me for an answer “but is it bad to have a baby at 15?”
We’re sitting under a tree together, watching 30 boys and three girls participate in a football practice that includes strategic drills with ladders and cones. The temperature is at least 90 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity suffocating. A coach hands me a soft one-week old puppy whose mother has died. “No one can afford to feed it,” he says hinting that maybe I should. A bunch of kids look at me with hope that I’ll take responsibility for its life. I pick a flea from its back crushing it between my fingernails, as I admit that I too can't take care of a puppy. “I rent a room in an apartment and leave in a few months” I said. The practicalities of raising a puppy likely meant its death. A boy placed its tiny weak body inside the shade of an old rubber tire that had been hammered into the ground to look like a rainbow to form a sideline seat.
I look at the girl smiling at me, is it okay to have a baby at 15? She's eagerly waiting for my answer. There’s no escaping her curios plea. She continues to hold her gaze. Her little frame is dressed like a teenager with stylish ripped jeans and bright pink t-shirt.
Data on teenage (or sometimes pre-teenage) pregnancy isn't recorded by the sport for development organization that she participates in. Why girls quit the program isn’t either, but in interviews with participants pregnancy was a common response. Research reveals that 50 percent of Colombian teenage girls who dropped out of school sited pregnancy as the reason.
The odds of unintended pregnancy are quadrupled when living in a neighborhood with high rates of male patriarchal control. The Colombian National Department of Statistics reveals that sexual education is limited, but sexual manipulation and violence is commonplace.[1] Psychosocial factors include social pressures for adolescents to be sexually active, masculinity’s link to sexism and dominance, and motherhood being a status symbol of womanhood.
In 2010, The Colombian government created the National Commission for the Promotion of Sexual and Reproductive Rights to combat teenage (and childhood) pregnancy, but combating the cultural norm of teenage pregnancy within a culture that is heavily influenced by the Catholic Church and has socially constructed womanhood to coincide with motherhood is no small task. A poll conducted by Revista Semana in 2012 revealed the current generation aligns with traditional, conservative values typified by older generations; more than 75% oppose abortion. Abortion is illegal excepting specific circumstances – rape, genetic malformation, or the mother’s life being at risk – but in 2008 alone, 400,400 illegal abortions were conducted. In 2010, Congress passed a law to provide free condoms and female birth control through the health system. As a result, research shows birth control has become more “commonplace” among women already in committed relationships, but access to the unwed is questionable due to social stigma held among a population that is 90% Catholic.
Is it bad to have a baby at 15?
“No,” I say to her. “It's not bad, but I think it's better to wait to have a baby if you can.” Statistically, the probability of her giving birth within the next six years of her life is one in three. [2]
[1] Oxfam et al. report: Prevalence of sexual violence during the period 2001 – 2009, based on information from 407 municipalities with presence of the Public Force, guerrilla, paramilitaries or other armed actors in Colombia – was estimated as 17.58 percent, which means that during that period of time, 489,687 women were direct victims of sexual violence. (p. 7)
[2] The Colombian Family Welfare Institute reports that one in every five young Colombian women between the ages of 15 and 19 already have a child or are currently pregnant and 64 percent of these pregnancies were unplanned. More striking, 30 percent of displaced young women (age 15-19) have been pregnant at least once and 66 percent of young women living in the poorest economic classes are mothers by age 19.