DR1 Daily News - Dominican Republic

Teenage pregnancy is a normalized crime in the Dominican Republic. Despite clear laws criminalizing sexual abuse against minors, the Dominican Republic has yet to put a stop to the pervasive issue of the normalized reality of teenage pregnancy and births. Disturbingly, thousands of underage girls are victims of sexual abuse that most often go unreported to the authorities by the hospitals, when the children seek and receive medical help when reporting the situation.

Dominican law explicitly states that minors under 18 cannot legally consent to sexual relations. Therefore, any adult engaging in sexual activity with a minor is committing sexual abuse, a crime outlined in Article 331 of the Dominican Penal Code. Yet, a tacit complicity surrounds adolescent pregnancy in the country, reports Diario Libre.

The scale of the problem is significant. As reported in Diario...