Vice President Margarita Cedeño was present for the launching at the Silver Sun Gallery Cinema theater on 10 October 2017 of the United Nations Children’s Fund campaign to change the early cohabitation that affects a third of girls under 18 years in the Dominican Republic.
“The Worst Soap Opera” is the name of the drama that tells the story of two teenagers. These are 14-year old Kenia, who lives with her mom in a rural community. The mother, seeking a better life for both, hands her daughter over to live with a 55-year old man. Paola is another teenager who chooses cohabitation to escape a family life of psychological, physical and sexual violence, hoping that her life will improve with marriage.
The soaps have five chapters lasting a minute each. They will be passed on Telesistema (Channel 11), Telemicro (Channel 5), Channel 4, Channel 9 and several online media starting Monday, 16 October 2017.
“It is time to break the silence, without cynicism, to defend the right of these girls to have a happy childhood; we are the second region in the world with the greatest incidence of this great problem,” said the regional director of Unicef for Latin America and the Caribbean, María Cristina Perceval at the launching of the TV series.
The ambassador stressed the “pure coincidence” that Unicef, the local government, media and civil society organizations, have joined forces to carry out this campaign in favor of Dominican children.
According to data admitted by the authorities, by the year 2014, 37% of women between the ages of 20 and 24 stated that they had been cohabiting before the age of 18, and 12% before the age of 15. Data shows that early “marriages” in the Dominican Republic result in pregnancies in two of three teenagers.
The DR is one of the countries with the highest rates of child “marriage” in the Latin American and Caribbean region. “Child marriage, far from benefiting girls, truncates their future and deepens them in poverty, because it is duly documented that those who suffer from this situation are at the lowest levels of income,” said Rosa Elcarte, the director of the Unicef office in Santo Domingo. She remarked that the TV serial drama will not have an echo in society until there is a change in mindset. “As long as we assume as normal that a girl has to marry or unite before age 18, we will not move forward in eradicating this problem,” she observed. “We all have to stop thinking like this so things really start to change,” she insisted during the presentation.
Read more in Spanish:
Diario Social RD
https://www.unicef.org/republicadominicana/media_36872.html
11 October 2017
