Forty-nine per cent of girls aged 15-17 in Jamaica's capital, Kingston, have reportedly experienced sexual coercion or violence. One-third stated that they had been persuaded or forced to participate in their first sexual experience, a study has revealed.

Though young women who had experienced sexual violence were not more likely than those who had not to become pregnant, the numbers reflect the widespread prevalence of gender-based violence in Jamaica, the authors concluded.

The study, titled The Influence of Early Sexual Debut and Sexual Violence on Adolescent Pregnancy: A Matched Case-Control Study in Jamaica, also found that 94 per cent of the pregnant teens interviewed reported that their pregnancies were unintended. These findings, the researchers said, demonstrate a strong need for increased education and services for young people in Jamaica to help reduce the country's high rates of unplanned teen pregnancy and gender-based violence.

Efforts to empower young women are key to addressing these problems, said the authors. The study found a significant link between unequal relationships and pregnancy risk: Compared with their peers who had never been pregnant, adolescents who were pregnant were more likely to have had a first sexual partner who was at least five years older, to have low self-esteem and to believe contraception is solely a woman's responsibility.

Contraceptives

Among teens who were pregnant, those who first had sex by age 14 were more likely to have had two or more partners than those who had first sex at a later age. In addition, pregnant young women were less likely to report having used contraceptives the first time they had sex than were teens who had never been pregnant. Eighty-seven per cent of pregnant teens who reported having used contraceptives at the time they became pregnant said they had relied on condoms.

To help reduce pregnancy risk, the authors recommend that programmes encourage teens to delay sex (if it is under their control) until they find a job or finish school, as well as educate sexually active young women on more reliable, hormonal contraceptive methods that can be used in combination with condoms.

Of the 250 pregnant women recruited to participate in the study, 182 were from one large hospital and the rest from smaller antenatal care clinics.

The study appears in the March 2009 issue of International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, formerly known as International Family Planning Perspectives.

Its authors are Joy Noel Baumgartner, Cynthia Waszak Geary, Heidi Tucker - all based in the United States - and Maxine Wedderburn, executive director of Hope Enterprises in Jamaica.

Data for the study were primarily gleaned from interviews with teen girls aged 15-17, 250 of whom were pregnant and 500 others who were sexually experienced but never pregnant.