Official numbers reveal UK girls pregnant at 10

February 8, 2010 by Shawn Douglas  
Filed under: News, Pregnancy

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Official numbers out of the UK reveal that girls as young as 10 are getting pregnant.

The U.K.’s newspaper The Sun has revealed that in the last eight years, at least 15 girls aged 10 and 39 girls aged 11 became pregnant in England and Wales.

The Sun received its data through a Freedom of Information request, finding that in total there have been 63,487 reported pregnancies in girls aged 15 and younger since 2002.

The numbers were as follows: 15 girls aged 10; 39 girls aged 11; 268 girls ages 12; 2,527 aged 13; 14,777 aged 14; and 45,861 aged 15. It was not clear how many of the pregnancies were carried out in full or aborted.

The Sun noted that before this data was released, it was believed that the youngest mother in the U.K. was a Scottish girl who conceived at age 11 and gave birth at 12.

The numbers provide a clearer picture of what has generally been known already — England is struggling with teen pregnancy. England still remains the teen pregnancy capital of Europe according to numbers by the World Health Organization. Additionally, it was reported in November 2009 that England overtook France for having the most reported abortions in 2007.

As the numbers received by The Sun give no indication of neither the number of reported and unreported abortions nor miscarriages, the number of teen pregnancies is likely to be even higher.

Many Conservatives in office blame teen pregnancies on attempts at early sex education. With Labour’s call to have all children five and older receive compulsory sex education, outrage has become more prominent.

“There are far too many schools telling children they are entitled to become sexually active when it is ‘right for them’,” said Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust.

Anastasia de Waal, of U.K. think tank and charity Civitas, agreed, telling The Sun: “We have kids behaving as adults, not realizing the complications. Often the girls feel they have to have sex to please their older boyfriends.”

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