Teen girls meet for straight talk
Watching the television news, listening to the radio and reading the newspapers, we often get the feeling that the negative forces facing our society are formidable, if not invincible. But fortunately, not everyone is ready to give up. Today I travelled to the village of Lord’s Bank where an enthusiastic group of teenaged girls were taking a wide ranging look at how to gain control of their future.
They are different in just about every way, but these young women from across the Belize District share similar experiences, growing up together in a world where their sexual health is threatened everyday.
Janelle Chanona
“Tell me what kind of information is going around out there that young women are believing, that isn’t true?”
Annette Diego, 17-year-old
“The teenagers will allow older men to tell them things like, like what I said earlier about a forty-five year old man who told me that it’s normal to have sex with a thirteen year old or a fourteen year old without getting her pregnant, which the lady said it’s false. He said that at forty-five the sperm had already died out from your system, so nothing will happen.”
Janelle Chanona
“That’s scary that, one, he’s telling this to young girls, but two, that even more so the young women are believing it. How do we stop things like that from happening? What do you think?”
Annette Diego
“I think parents need to talk to their children more, especially young ladies and the teachers themselves need to help the young ladies out too, because not all the young ladies are aware of what’s happening around the world.”
In an effort to fend off these dangerous lies, the Youth Enhancement Services has organized forums for young women, hoping that the single sex environment will allow for open and frank discussions.
Presenter
“A lot of men or older men who have sex with young girls don’t usually use protection.”
Today’s session was held in Lord’s Bank Village and the three topics on the table were HIV/AIDS, sexual abuse, and teenage pregnancy.
Karen Cain, Youth Enhancement Services
“The girls came up with these topics themselves. Primarily, we did a survey and we went into the Lake Independence area and these were the topics that they pointed out were of most concern to them.”
“HIV/AIDS, as we are aware, is affecting this age bracket of fourteen and up. Sexual abuse is on the rise as usual, some people talk about it, some people hide it, but it always have been there, so it always have been a problem. And teenage pregnancy is as prevalent as ever, so all three topics today I think is going to be touched on in such as way that the girls can realise that they are ways that they can prevent these things and we are here to help them and guide them in that direction.”
Organizers are encouraged by the fact that the young women seem eager to get the facts about sex. Sixty women were expected this morning, eight-five showed up.
Participants say fun and jokes aside, life is real in the outside world and young women need all the allies they can get.
Andrea O’Brien, 17-year-old
“I live in a very complicated neighbourhood and many of these problems are within my community. But we, the ones who are not affected by it as yet, shall have the chance to learn about it and help save ourselves from being in these situations.”
Janelle Chanona
“Your younger siblings and family members, they come to you for advice? And some of the things they come to you with, they frighten you?”
Keisha Neal, 18-year-old
“Yes, because at their age you know if they don’t get the knowledge that they need they are going to find out these things by experience and that’s very frightening for one of my younger siblings to come to me with.”
Janelle Chanona
“So what you tell them when they come to you?”
Keisha Neal
“Well I just basically tell them the truth, do not hold nothing back from them, because if you hold something back, maybe that might be the important thing that they need to go on with their situation, so just tell them the truth and everything outright.”
“There are a lot of diseases going on around Belize and the world and if you would just wait, everybody will get their chance to go out and explore. Just wait, because you can mess up your body at a young age and that’s really a big problem in Belize right now.”
