Proposed ordinance against early pregnancy under study

The proposed ordinance preventing early pregnancy and institutionalizing social protection parenthood responsibility for children and early pregnancy is now being reviewed by the City Council committee on health, nutrition, and health insurance chaired by Councilor Maria Lourdes S. Gaane.

City Vice Mayor Jocelyn B. Rodriguez filed the proposed ordinance as she expressed alarm over a survey showing that Northern Mindanao ranks second nationwide in terms of the percentage of young women aged 15 to 19 who started bearing children.

Based on the data, around 15-percent of young women within that age range are teenage childbearing compared to just 9-percent in the national level.

Under the proposed ordinance, the city will adopt a strategic framework of action in collaboration with other government agencies and civil society organizations to reduce child and teenage pregnancy.

These strategic framework actions include community-based adolescent reproductive health education; access to youth oriented adolescent reproductive health services; measures against sexual abuse or coercion; socio-economic development interventions; youth participation and development through the Barangay Adolescent Health Care desks; and evidence-based health care and teenage pregnancy cases.

An Adolescent Health Care Council will be created in collaboration with other local departments and other private organizations to formulate policies, spearhead the establishment of adolescent health care centers, and ensure social protection mechanisms for teenagers who are pregnant, among others.