According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative in the Dominican Republic, Jeremy Freehill, young people in the Dominican Republic have a high level of unemployment, a high level of teenage pregnancies and a low level of education.
Interviewed on the El Dia show on Telesistema, Channel 11, he said that to coincide with International Youth Day, UNFPA was launching a campaign aimed at preventing teenage pregnancies. He pointed out that in the Dominican Republic people were considered young if they were under 35, whereas for UNFPA it was between 20 and 29 years. He said that if the authorities approved that range for young people, and invested in education, job opportunities and prevention of underage pregnancies, the country would be more competitive.
Freehill said that 38.1% of the country’s population is between the ages of 10 and 29, which he describes as “an army of young people.”
He said that in Europe there is an aging population with many people having children later but that was not the case here where unemployment stood at around 14%, but doubled to 28% among young men and around 50% for young women.
He went on to say that the one-in-five rate of teenage pregnancies was twice as high as the average for the rest of the world. 52% of women and 72% of men had had sexual relations before reaching 18 years of age.
www.eldia.com.do/nacionales/2013/8/12/121735/El-Dia-Mundial-de-la-Juventud-encuentra-jovenes-de-RD-con-pocas