According to the entity’s Vital Statistics Yearbook, two girls became mothers at the age of 11, 17 being 12 years old, 124 at 13, and the others were barely 14 years old.

They are among the 15,977 women aged 19 or younger who gave birth last year, equivalent to 11.58 percent of the total number of births, which ranked to 137,946.

Although 75.44 percent of Dominican women were between 20 and 34 years old at the time of birth, teenage pregnancy continues to be a challenge for schools in the Dominican Republic and an obstacle to their development.

In 2023, according to the National Education Union, 4.8 percent of households in the country had a boy or a girl between 15 and 17 years old as the head of household, who, in turn, took care of their children.

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