ZONTA SAYS NO TO TEEN PREGNANCY AND CHILD MARRIAGE

Zonta Club of Metro Ortigas and Commission on Population, National Capital Region launched a comic book, Kilala Mo Ba Sila? at Rizal High School Gymnasium in Pasig City.  The morning event was attended by 1,000 students who participated in a forum.  A special participation of Mr. Jose Mari Chan  made the event more fun.

POPCOM-NCR AND ZONTA INT’L CAMPAIGN FOR TEENAGE PREGNANCY PREVENTION 

The Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM) in the National Capital Region and ZONTA International will jointly launch a manga type of Comics to campaign for the prevention of teenage pregnancy, to be held on November 29, 2019 at Rizal High School in Pasig City.

The launching is in time with the observance of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence which is observed annually from November 25-December 10.  This year’s theme is “Orange the World: Generation Equality Stands Against Rape!”.

POPCOM-NCR Regional Director Lydio M. Espanol Jr. said that there are around 500 girls giving birth in the Philippines every day and there are more adolescents engaging in premarital sex, thus raise the concerns about early and unplanned pregnancies among the young people.

“To appeal to the emotion of our young people, POPCOM-NCR and ZONTA, Int’l ventured into the production of comics that contain three stories about young people battling issues on teenage pregnancy, Human Immuno Deficiency Virus (HIV) and early marriage,” added Espanol. 

These comics will disseminate information on the possible causes, factors and effects of engaging into non-sexual and sexual risk behaviors among young people.

Director Espanol explained that that there are different factors affecting the kind of behaviors of today’s youth. As stated in the Young Adults Fertility and Sexuality Further Study of NCR, YAFS3, factors such as the sexual risk-taking behavior and exposure to pornographic materials, particularly X-rated videos are facilitative of early sex among the young people. 

He added that a combination of many and complex factors, such as the younger age of menarche, changing sexual behaviors with regard to premarital sexual activity among the youth and increasing tolerance on premarital sex coupled with less stigma on legitimizing out-of-wedlock pregnancies or living-in arrangements contribute to the increasing incidence of teenage pregnancy. The other factors include lack of information about sexual reproductive health and rights, sexual violence such as rape and incest, child forced marriages, lack of access to reproductive health programs, ineffective parental guidance, and negative peer pressure, among others.

Given the complexity of the factors, POPCOM supports the call to declare this alarming state as “National Social Emergency” so that it can be addressed drastically by inter-agency and multi-stakeholders collaboration, including immediate family, schools, LGUs, national government agencies, religious sector and civil society organizations through policies and program interventions. 

The launching and production of these comics are necessary as NCR tops the number of young people who are engaging into early sex based on the Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Survey 2013, and 7 out of 10 of these activities do not use any form of protection against pregnancy and STI, HIV and AIDS. 

The comics is intended to be distributed to students with ages 10-19, as the main target of the program and the ones who are most vulnerable to these non-sexual and sexual risky behaviors. ### (POPCOM-NCR, November 24, 2019) 

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Zonta International is a leading global organization that continues to seek solutions in empowering women through service and advocacy. It envisions a world in which women’s rights are recognized as human rights and every woman is able to achieve her full potential. Founded in 1919, there are 29,000 members in 1,200 Zonta Clubs in 63 countries.

In the Philippines, there are some 1,800 members in 51 Zonta Clubs located in different cities. They volunteer to work together with local government units and non-government organizations in order to create a movement that will break down barriers and build pathways to a gender-friendly environment especially for women and girls. 

Since 1999, Zonta has joined the international campaign of 16 Days of Activism which begins on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and runs until 10 December, Human Rights Day. Last October 2018, Zonta was the only private sector partner of the Global Program to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage. This program aims to bring together all stakeholders in a collective effort to prevent girls from marrying too young and to support those already married as girls. 

Child marriage is any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age. Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18 – that is 23 girls every minute or nearly one every two seconds. In the Philippines, girls with little to no education get married before 18. The social impact is an enormous economic loss that is carried over through generations as their children tend to be underfed and undereducated while the child mothers remain in poverty. Thus, teen pregnancy leads to child marriage. 

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This year, Zonta Club of Metro Ortigas’s response to this global movement is to create a comic book that will serve as a basic tool to start the dialogue that will lead to doable solutions. One of the solutions that came into view was Commission on Population’s report that “about 500 teenage girls give birth in the Philippines every day as more adolescents engage in premarital sex, raising concerns about early and unplanned pregnancies in the world’s 13th most populated country. A perfect partner has been found for Zonta’s advocacy.  

This comic book will be made available through partnerships with Zonta Club of Metro Ortigas and Commission on Population.   

Zonta of Metro Ortigas joins its global sisters in the battlecry:  Zonta Says NO to Teen Pregnancy!  Zonta Says NO to Child Marriage!

For more information, please email zontametrortigas@yahoo.com.