According to the Health Ministry statistics for 2015 to 2016 released in the National Substance Abuse Advisory Council Report, there were 5,293 teenage pregnancies. These are the reported cases.
From the year 2015 to 2016, 38 girls under the age of 15 years got pregnant while 5,255 girls between the age of 15 to 19 years got pregnant.
For the girls who were below the age of 15 years, there were 21 girls from the Northern Division, 11 girls from the Western Division and 6 girls from the Central Division.
The total number of teenage pregnancies by divisions are - 2,444 cases from the Western Division, 1,691 cases from the Central Division and 1,002 from the Northern Division.
We have sent questions to the Health Ministry on what is being done to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies. They will comment later.
