Africa-Press – Seychelles. The Assembly has requested that the government, through the Ministry of Health, review its policy and put in place a legal framework regarding access to contraceptive methods and other reproductive health services for young people under the age of 18 who are sexually active with the aim of reducing pregnancy and also reducing the risk of infection and other diseases associated with the reproductive system.
This motion in the Assembly yesterday was tabled by the MNA Democratic Union of Seychelles (LDS) Rosie Bistoquet and was unanimously supported by members on both sides of the table after they all put forward several deplorable and worrisome situations that are happening in their districts regarding this size.
The members say that the problem of young people who are not going to school and who do not seem to be getting enough sexual education to take responsibility for their sexuality is becoming deplorable and worrying for our small society.
This, they say, is leading to a number of social and economic problems where young mothers are not working and are not being assisted by the Social Protection Agency, which makes it difficult for them to care for the children who are suffering a lot.
They say that all this would be a problem for the society and the orphans who often need to pick up the poor innocents whose mothers often die in school or drugs.
In his presentation, Honorable Bistoquet pointed out that to ensure that everyone has a healthy reproductive health, it is important that they have access to good information, acceptable contraceptive methods and based on individual cases.
“Every individual is well informed, has the ability to protect his body against sexually transmitted diseases, and he should be able to have his right to make his own decisions about his reproductive health and the right to family planning.
“In sexual relations too soon, the consequences are premature births, infections with different sexually transmitted diseases, risks to the health of the young girl, risks of loss, abortion, social problems, education which is often affected among many others. ”
Honorable Bistoquet pointed out that Seychelles has participated in the development of the regional strategy for sexual and reproductive health and rights that was made for SADC. This strategy was developed in 2019 and will be effective until 2023.
Honorable Bistoquet says that the participation of Seychelles as a member of SADC has helped Seychelles develop different national strategies on reproductive health, including for young people specifically, but despite all this there are many challenges to address to ensure that all young people can have access to services.
Honorable Bistoquet said that a study done in 2008 called the Child Wellbeing Study showed that 46% of boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 19 started having sex at the age of 14 and the majority of them were not using protection.
Another study on HIV in 2012 showed that 9.8% of people had sex before the age of 15, 0.76% of young people aged 15 to 24 were HIV positive.
Regarding births, in 2020-21 there were 1665 births and for 2020 there were four young girls under 15 who gave birth and for 2021 this figure is almost the same.
There were 207 young mothers aged 15 to 19 representing 12.4% of the total for the same year who were pregnant. In 2020, nineteen (19) young women between 15 and 19 gave birth to a second child and one of them gave birth to a third child.
“This trend is always the same for young women who give birth to their 3rd child. In 2017 ten (10) young women gave birth to their 3rd child, in 2018 nine (9) of them, and in 2019 there were 10 of them”.
Regarding abortion, Honorable Bistoquet said that even if Seychelles has a well-structured framework for abortion, the evidence shows that the number of abortions is too high for our population and the number of births per year.
In 2017 there were 541 abortions, in 2018 there were 473, in 2019 there were 431, in 2020 there were 504, in 2021 there were 406.
The highest number in the last 10 years was in 2011 where there were 579 abortions and the total during the last 5 years is 2335.
Honorable Bistoquet specified that these numbers reflect only the abortions that have gone through the hospital and not those that have not been reported.
He says that young girls and boys have a lot of difficulty accessing contraceptives and other reproductive health services because of their young age even if they are sexually active.
According to the current law, the age of consent to have sex is 15 while the age of majority is 18.
Mrs. Bistoquet says that young people are discouraged from coming forward to ask for help because they need their parents’ consent.
He says that with all kinds of health and social problems that always leads to this reason that this motion was tabled.
The members asked the government to take into account the proposals that came out of this debate.
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