KINGSTON, Jamaica — Against the backdrop of negotiations at the United Nations on women’s rights, the Jamaica Youth Advocacy Network (JYAN) and Help JA Children (HJC) are calling on policymakers to move swiftly to correct a “gross injustice to the adolescent girls of our country”. 

According to executive director for JYAN, Jaevion Nelson, the expulsion of girls from school because of pregnancy “is one of the most glaring and absolute forms of gender discrimination.”

“There is no way we can allow this to continue, if not because it forces us to push the issue of young people having sex on the back-burner, but it is also a policy that has little to no effect on reducing teenage pregnancy and the male involved,” Nelson argued.

“Understandably there is going to be a lot of moral panic as with anything to do with sex and adolescents. However, there is no justification for a law that targets and further marginalised girls in our country,” Nelson continued.

The groups also say that when girls are expelled from schools, they are bundled together “as if the girls have committed a crime”, even in cases of rape and forced sex. This, according to Nelson, leads to much public ridicule and “a hindrance to how we deal with the ideas of sex and teenage pregnancy”.

“This is not a new issue for us either. For years, youth advocates and student bodies have decried the disregard of child and student rights in the schools,” Nelson said adding that both JYAN and HJC were firm supporters in abstinence as the “best sex” and that the groups regularly collaborate to promote these values to young people.

He called for increased public debate about young people having sex, saying that more young people were engaging in unsafe sex and putting themselves at risk of HIV and other STIs.