THERE is no doubt that the Jamaican Government is firmly wedged between a rock and a hard place, with very little wiggle room as it chops even recurrent expenditure.That means putting people out of jobs and closing down critical social programmes.

One of the clearest signs yet of the pain we will be feeling is in the slashing of the already inadequate subvention given to the Women’s Centre of Jamaica Foundation (WCJF) that operates seven centres and 13 outreach sites catering to adolescent mothers who had to drop out of school because of pregnancy, as outlined in our front page lead story today.

Without pretending that it will be easy, we wish to urge the Bruce Golding administration to do whatever it can not to further decimate this vital programme that seeks to return pregnant adolescents to school after they have given birth and to prevent a second pregnancy before adulthood. With three of the 20 centres already closed — putting 500 teenage mothers out in the cold — some of the agencies battling with the horrible problems besetting our teenage girls have been feeling its effects. These include the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) and the Child Development Agency (CDA).

We can’t help but sympathise with Mrs Beryl Weir, the very passionnate executive director of the Women’s Centre which runs the programme. Mrs Weir, in confirming that the Centre’s operations had come to a halt in Ulster Springs, Trelawny; Highgate in St Mary and Braeton in Portmore, St Catherine, explained that there was no money to provide meals for the girls and to pay travelling officers to go to and from the outreach sites and educational institutions serving the girls.

Her cry seeps into the very soul of all decent Jamaicans who are aware of the often traumatic situation in which far too many of our young girls exist.

“We have to feed the girls, when they come to us. We have to find somebody in the community to prepare box lunches for them because we have to ensure that they’re eating when they’re with us. We know their situation at home, that sometimes they’re not adequately fed,” she complained.

“We also support the girls with bus fare, so if we don’t get the required budget we can’t do that,” Mrs Weir added, noting that the girls were sometimes assisted with formula and medical expenses for their babies.

It is the kind of problem that is bound to come back to haunt us.

The chop in the Centre’s budget this year was $22 million — a small figure in the overall scheme of things — but its impact was sharp and immediate.

Some 465 girls who were referred to the agency this year could not be reached, as the centres closest to them had closed or the travel budget could no longer support home visits. If each of these girls remain out of school and had a repeat pregnancy, do the math. And to that, add the number of girls who were not even referred to the Centre.

From survey results, we can measure the efficacy of the Women’s Centre programme in increased use of contraception among teen girls; reduced incidence of repeat pregnancy; increased educational attainment and increased employment among young mothers who participated in the programme.

It is all this which is now at risk.