Teen Pregnancy
What can be done to combat this problem? Who should be responsible? Or – and this might be the more pertinent question – can anything be done?

Teenage girls are being impregnated in this country at an alarming rate.
Oh, sure, you can turn away. You can blush in embarrassment. Or bury your head in the sand – or in the Bible – and say ‘Not my kids.’ But none of those actions will make the problem go away.
Not when anecdotal evidence suggests 10-year-olds today are experimenting with sex. Not when 14-year-old girls, barely on the cusp of womanhood, are having babies.
In the space of one year, the number of teenage mothers in this country increased by 50 per cent. It’s become a situation we can no longer ignore, no matter how surreptitiously those babies are absorbed into the extended family unit. What was once met with a chorus of disapproving whispers has now becoming a cacophony demanding a solution.
What can be done to combat this problem? Who should be responsible? Or – and this might be the more pertinent question – can anything be done?
After all, we are talking about teenagers here. Filled with false bravado and raging hormones, with no concept of repercussions or ramifications. Living for the moment. Following their urges. Having sex.
The Health Worker
Sex education needs to start in the home, says Maina Beniamina, the Reproductive Health and Adolescent Health Coordinator with the Ministry of Health.
“Parents have to teach their children about the risks young girls and boys face during their growth and development,” she says.
Unfortunately, Beniamina says, many adults are failing in their parenting duties.
“I think the parents are too shy because, before, to talk about sex in the home was very taboo,” she says. “There is a lack of knowledge with young people about themselves, about sexuality, because it’s not being talked about in the home.”
It is being talked about by the Ministry of Health, both through school programmes and in the youth-friendly clinic Beniamina operates at the Community Health Clinic in Tupapa.
“As young people reach puberty, there are changes physically, psychologically and emotionally,” Beniamina says. “Because of that, because of peer pressure, they start doing things because their friends are doing them. Sort of like a competition.”
Having accepted the inevitable – you’re never going to prevent teens from having sex – the clinic provides family planning aids and counselling.
“It’s easy access for young people and there’s nobody else here but me,” Beniamina says.
Condoms are available, as are the Pill and emergency contraceptives.
“If girls are 16 or over, they can come in and get the Pill,” Beniamina explains. “At that age, they don’t need their parents’ consent. But if they are under 16, they need their parents’ consent to get family planning.”
While the Pill may prevent pregnancies, it does nothing to stop the spread of Sexually-Transmitted Infections (STIs). No matter how bulletproof teens may think they are, the reality is they are taking huge health risks by being sexually active on a random basis.
“There are a lot of young people who think they can just have different partners, especially at the age between 10 and 13,” says Beniamina. “Currently there is an increase in the STI rates in the Cook Islands. Looking ahead two or three years, because of the early sexual activities happening around that age, there is the possibility of them having multiple partners, therefore increasing the rates of STIs.”
The Doctor
Pelvic inflammatory disease. The Black Drip. Infertility.
Sexual intercourse can be detrimental to your health.
“Chlamydia is a silent killer,” says Dr Yinyin May of the most prevalent Sexually-Transmitted Infection (STI) in the Cook Islands. “It can damage your female organs and you can end up with infertility or entopic pregnancies, which will become an emergency.”
Dr May, the obstetrician and gynaecologist at Rarotonga hospital, has been watching babies having babies for the past 11 years.
“There is always a concern about teenage pregnancies,” she says. “There are a lot of issues around it.”
By the time Dr May sees them, the girls are already pregnant and it’s a bit too late for lectures and disapproving frowns.
“So we will advise them that it is not a wise thing to have babies at this age because it will hinder their education and their career,” says Dr May. “We usually advise them to use contraceptives in the future.”
With so many places on the island for teens to partake of family planning, why are they still getting pregnant?
“It is easily preventable but teenagers, as you know, sometimes think they know everything,” says Dr May. “They don’t want to listen to guidance from the people who are telling them not to do those things.”
While only the girl will bear children, STIs don’t discriminate between the genders. Take gonorrhoea, for example. Dr May is very graphic when she describes its affect on the rutting male of the species.
“They will have lots of discharge and urinary tract infection,” she says. “It can also damage your fertility.”
With 20 per cent of those women examined in the antenatal clinic testing positive for Chlamydia, the chances of contacting an STI in the Cook Islands is too high not to take precautions.
“We cannot say they cannot have sex,” says Dr May. “We can only advise them to use condoms.”
The Advocate
Kathy Koteka, for one, believes parents are doing their best to teach their children about sex. But she does question whether the message is sinking in.
“I don’t think any mother would not explain the situation to their children about teenage pregnancy,” says Koteka, a charge nurse with the Cook Islands Family Welfare Association. “It’s the young ones, you know, they don’t want to listen. It’s that age group, from 11 up to 16 – they think they can do what they like.”
While family planning is available at the organization’s office in Tupapa, it comes with a generous dose of counselling.
“We can’t just distribute (family planning) without some counselling,” says Koteka. “We need to talk to the young ones so they can really know what they’re up to and how they’re going to behave and why there is a need to put them onto protection.”
Informed that teens might be put off asking for help if they’re going to be subjected to a lecture, Koteka admits some are initially embarrassed to talk to her.
“But thereafter they are alright,” she insists. “Once they’re convinced that this is the best place to come and get protected. We are really trying our best to help the young people.”
The Counsellor
At what point is it too late to teach children about sex? At what point are your lessons falling on deaf ears because they’ve already been there and, unfortunately, done that?
Sarah Milne doesn’t have the answers. A school guidance counsellor at Tereora College, Milne teaches a sexual component of the Life Skills course for Year 9 students. Students who are already 14. Students who already have first-hand knowledge of everything Milne is explaining.
“I think (sex education) should happen at every level, because there are different developmental stages, obviously, from 10- to 17- or 18-year-olds,” Milne says. “There are different stages of their thinking and development.”
Milne says she starts the 12-lesson course by establishing ground rules about respect.
“We then look at puberty and changes in the body and changes in thinking,” she says. “And then we look into decision making and negotiation skills around relationships. How to say, ‘look, hey, I’m happy to be your boyfriend or your girlfriend, but this is where I want to leave it’. Sometimes teens don’t think where a relationship is heading and they, perhaps, become sexually active without thinking about it. It just happens.”
Milne admits the country has its work cut out for it as far as educating youth about sex.
“That involves communication,” she says. “I want to encourage the young people to be able to talk things through and to negotiate. If they have the confidence to do that, their relationship will be a lot healthier.”
The Educator
Forewarned is forearmed, which is why sex education is part of the Health curriculum in schools, taught to Year 9 and 10 (13 and 14-year-old) students.
“It’s like everything else in that we have hope that people who have been well-informed and educated will make responsible decisions,” says Secretary of Education Sharyn Paio. “It’s about the schools working in partnership with the parents. It’s not just the responsibility of the Ministry of Education to teach children about sexuality. It’s a joint responsibility.”
During her teaching career, Paio saw girls as young as 14 becoming pregnant, but noted the majority of the student mothers at that time were older teens, in Year 12 or 13, and living with their partners.
“My concern is what happens to these young women when they have the children,” she says. “They will be the primary caregiver for those children in many instances, and their future will determine the future of their child. So it’s really important that they go on to get qualifications.”
At one time, pregnant girls were considered bad examples and asked to leave school. These days, Paio says, there are no regulations about banning them from classes.
“I’m glad we’ve moved on, but I’d hate to think that the way that we’ve moved on has encouraged more girls to actually take less precautions in terms of their personal safety,” she says. “I guess that’s the Catch-22, isn’t it? Where do you draw the line? We want to support these girls but you don’t want to make it so easy that others think, ‘Oh, yes, I’ll have a child’.”
The Law
If you have sex with underage girls, you will have plenty of time to contemplate your actions. Up to 14 years of time, in fact.
“According to our Crimes Act 1969, under Section 145, it says ‘anyone who has sexual intercourse with any girl under the age of 12 years is liable to imprisonment not exceeding 14 years’,” says Detective Inspector Aka Matapo.
The age of consent in the Cook Islands is 16, meaning sex with girls between the ages of 13 and 15 is also punishable by imprisonment, no matter how old their partners are.
Matapo doubts if teens are aware they are breaking the law if they engage in sexual activity under the age of 16.
“That is one of the issues we need to bring out to the community,” he says. “Education in terms of the legal age, in terms of sex. Otherwise, you will see a lot more school children getting pregnant.”
Matapo says underage sex offences were once consigned to the shadows, whispered about but seldom dealt with by law.
No more.
He says the number of males charged with having sex with underage girls is rising.
“We’ve had cases, also, where incidents have happened a couple years back and now some of the cases are being pulled out into the open,” he says. “By having the names (of the offenders) put in the paper or exposed in the media, it can be a deterrent for other potential offenders.”
The Girls
LG, 17, and AZ, 19, (not their real initials) are both sexually active teens. They opted to use the Pill for family planning. In the case of LG, however, she didn’t start until after having sex with her partner. It was too late. She became pregnant. She is now a teenage mom.
These are the girls all those adults are so concerned about. These are the girls those adults want to educate and communicate with and make grandiose gestures about to save their womanhood.
So where did they learn about the facts of life?
“From both my parents and school,” says LG. “And the church.”
“It was Dolly and Girlfriend,” says AZ, naming two popular magazines. “And then, afterwards, it was in Health class at school.”
LG feels there is enough information available for teenagers to understand the possible consequences of having unprotected sex, but said she was too embarrassed to go to a clinic for family planning. Instead, a relative helped her.
Asked how being a young parent will impact her future, she says, her baby “slows it down a bit because you have more responsibilities. I still think everything will work out. It just takes time”.
As for whether the child’s birth will strengthen her relationship with her partner, LG says only, “I don’t know.”
For her part, AZ says learning about sex in Year 10 is too late in the game for most teens.
“By the time you’re 15, a lot of girls have already experienced it, without knowing, exactly, the consequences,” she says. “So they should be taught at least the basics when they’re 13.”
AZ asked an older friend to go with her when she asked about family planning. She never entertained the thought of going to her parents for help, “because they would have killed me”.
She knows several pregnant teenagers and says the problem is often one of naivety, at least on the girls’ behalf. While boys tend to be hard-wired for breeding, girls often go into relationships thinking more of the wonders of dating rather than the joys of sex.
“They’re just dating and then – wrong place, wrong time – it happens,” says AZ. “In the heat of the moment, they don’t think about what is going to happen afterwards. Because they weren’t thinking about sex, they don’t think about having to go on family planning.”
She now plays the support role for her friends who are thinking of having sex or are in need of family planning. This is the kind of peer-to-peer assistance, she says, that will help prevent future teen pregnancies.
“You’ve got to have someone to be interested in what you’re doing, so you know you’re not alone,” she says. “So you know there’s someone there to help you.”

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