Thailand struggles with teen pregnancy
8 Mar 2013
Reuters News agency
Thomson Reuters
When Mallika told her parents she was pregnant at 17, they pulled her out of school and ordered her to marry the baby's father. But the marriage didn't happen and the one-time aspiring singer now cares for her baby girl alone.
"I love her, but at the time I hid in shame," said Mallika, now 23 and a vendor of cheap, made-in-China clothing at a weekend market in Bangkok.
"The boy's family wanted to pay me to shut up and stay away from them. We were both children ourselves," she added, sitting in her dilapidated apartment overlooking a highway on the outskirts of the city.
Mallika's situation is, sadly, far from unusual. Thailand's teenage pregnancy rate is the highest in Southeast Asia after neighbouring Laos, according to the Bureau of Reproductive Health at the Public Health Ministry.
In fact, even though the overall birthrate is dropping, teen births are on the rise. Out of every 1,000 live births, 54 are from teen mothers aged 15-19 - higher than in the United States and 10 times higher than Singapore's teen pregnancy rate.
What's more, it's rising fast. The number of live births by Thai teenage mothers aged 15-18 increased 43% between 2000 and 2011, an annual public health report shows.
Though there are many factors responsible, health experts put weight on cultural mores that make frank discussion of the issue difficult, whether in an official context or a personal one. This is complicated by gender issues.
"Women are told to protect their virginity but Thai men who have multiple sexual encounters are seen as cool," said Visa Benjamano, a commissioner at the National Human Rights Council (NHRC).
If men sleep around, their image is not at stake whereas a woman's image is. Women are generally more afraid to discuss their sexual health needs in public.