ZAMBOANGA CITY—Due to increasing sexual activity, many young Zamboanga Peninsula females have become teenage mothers, a local educator said.
A recent Region IX study conducted by Western Mindanao State University professor Rosalyn Echem revealed that “31.6 percent of teenage women have already engaged in pre-marital sex.”
Echem’s survey, entitled “2013 young adult fertility and sexuality” covering some 1,000 respondents showed that in 2002, only 11.9 percent of the girls engaged in premarital sex…but this nearly tripled to 31.6 percent in 2013.
She disclosed that girls as young as 13 already have sex, even as 92 percent of them admitted “their first sexual intercourse was borne out of love.”
Echem added that most of the sex acts occurred in the respondents’ homes, boarding houses or motels.
She appealed to the Department of Health and the Commission on Population to adopt advocacy programs on value formation for the youth, parents and communities in terms of reproductive, sexual and health rights to help arrest local rising teenage pregnancy.