Rise in both the under-15 and 16-18 age groups and the announcement
that £20m sex education package will be launched.

Yet again we see politicians defending their strategy for reducing the
number of teenage pregnancies after new figures showed that conception
rates among under-16s had risen for the first time since 2002.

The government insisted that its teenage pregnancy programme was still
on course, despite data from the Office for National Statistics showing
an increase in the number of pregnancies among girls in the 16-18 age
group as well as the under-16s.

The latest figures show

• More than 8,000 girls under 16 became pregnant in 2007
• Conceptions per 1,000 girls aged 12 to 15 in England and Wales rose
  from 7.8 in 2006 to 8.1 in 2007
• Rates among girls between the ages of 15 and 17 rose slightly, from
  40.9 per 1,000 in 2006 to 41.9 per 1,000 a year later.

The children’s minister, Beverley Hughes, admitted that the latest statistics
were “disappointing” but added that she was optimistic that the longer-term
trends were positive. She announced a £20.5m package to improve teenagers’
access to contraception and to information about the risks of unprotected
sex.

Overall rates of teenage pregnancy have fallen by 12.6% among under-18s,
and by 12.3% among under-16s since 1998, when the government announced
its target of halving teenage pregnancies in England by 2010.

Many campaigners have blamed the government for failing to ensure sex
education programmes are systematically put in place around the UK. While
some areas which invested heavily in prevention programmes have been seeing
big falls in teenage conceptions, others have been falling behind.

Perhaps what is needed is both a local and a universal approach to the
issue, including better sex education. A combination of careful planning,
a “strong local champion”, a communications strategy directing parents
and young people to effective contraception services, and robust sex education
in schools, would be the common-sense way to turn things around.

Part of the problem in some areas was that either the local council or
the NHS was using money allocated for sexual health for other health services.
It is essential that funding finds its way to local areas where the need
was greatest.

The response to these figures, has been from ministers who are calling
for a redoubling of efforts by local health services to ensure that the
underlying trend of falling teenage pregnancies was maintained. A £7m
“contraceptive choices” media campaign is to be launched to raise awareness,
while £10m will go to local health services to ensure that contraception
is available “in the right places at the right time”.

Why is Britain Teenage pregnancy so high? Should we be more like our
European friends?

At a School in Amsterdam, in the middle of the red-light district, five-year-olds
confidently tell you what their parents did last night, one girl asked
her father for a sample of sperm, teenagers debate the merits of anal
sex and teachers discuss the pleasures of fulfilling a gay relationship.

Families settle down after supper to discuss documentaries on masturbation
or to watch a baby being born on the birthing channel. Yet the Netherlands
has the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy in the West and the lowest rates
of sexually transmitted diseases in young people.

Children know everything about how to make a baby, but the average age
for first-time sex is 17. In Britain we blush at the mention of bottoms
and bosoms but teenage pregnancy is five times higher than in the Netherlands.

About 93 per cent of young Dutch people say they use contraception, compared
with 53 per cent in Britain. Doortje Braeker, who works in Britain for
the International Planned Parenthood Federation, says: “Young girls here
seem to have babies to prove that they are adults and to give them a role
in life. In the Netherlands it would just prove how uneducated and naive
you were.”

Date
2nd March 2009

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