An average of 5 pupils attending secondary school in Bogota’s poor Kennedy district are pregnant, a recent survey reported by various media Tueasday showed.
The survey was conducted by the district’s Ombudsman’s office who spoke to pupils aged between 11 and 17 in 38 of Kennedy’s 43 schools. Of those surveyed, 204 were found to be pregnant.
Ombudsman Juan Carlos Ocampo said that the survey showed that “in Kennedy’s high schools’ seventh grade 15 girls were pregnant, in eighth grade there were 13, in ninth grade there were 50, in the tenth, 57 and in the eleventh grade there were 61 pregnancies.”
Ocampo called on parents and the ministry of education to take action, claiming that many underage pregnancies are the result of sexual abuse taking place in homes. He also claimed that such pregnancies “increase absenteeism levels within local schools”, Caracol Radio reported.