Officials from the Ministry of Social Transformation made a courtesy call on the Acting Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda the Hon. Steadroy Cutie Benjamin, on Friday.
The meeting was held to share information about the planned approach being taken in a new survey that is being conducted presently.
The Consultant Tamara Higgins stated that currently a questionnaire is being handed out to gather the views of young persons between the ages of 15- on sexual education.
She added that based on previous research done, the birth rate have falling worldwide. The local survey being done will seek to discover the factors that are contributing to the low birth-rate that is being experienced in Antigua and Barbuda.
Acting Prime Minister and Attorney General the Hon. Steadroy Cutie Benjamin mentioned that the low birth rate may be attributed to the education campaign that has been ongoing, headed by the Family Planning Unit, on ensuring that persons have access to information regarding safe sex and family planning.
Benjamin added that it would appear that young people are more educated and are more fixed on being responsible and having children later on in life.
Tamara Higgins is expected to produce her findings within the month of December 2018. She says the aim is to produce a comprehensive report, which will highlight best practices and give solid recommendations.
She also proposed making some adjustments to the laws governing abortion in Antigua and Barbuda.
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Believe it or not, not everyone can/will/should/wants to have children. And that is okay too. This world is such a crazy messed up place that one ought to think seriously about the consequences of bringing another human being into this dark and wicked world of pain and suffering. If people choose to, that’s good. If people choose not to, that’s good.
“Arl harss nah mek fu run alike”
That is true, but it is also very expensive to live in Antigua (and the entire world) for an individual, much less to be bringing children in the mix. It would even be worst if you are a single parent. So people are taking that into consideration.
Antigua has too small of a population and we need to increase our birth rate. However, we need to increase the birth rate among Antiguan parents that are educated, have good jobs and who are responsible.
Too many parents in today’s world let their kids run around screaming and crying, with no discipline at all. Once parents start being responsible, then I will be OK with the birth rate going up. Until then, no thanks!
If you are seeking to understand the low birth rate in our country…why are we surveying 15 YEAR OLDS? Why not focus on people between the ages of 25-35? Sex education is a necessary measure needed in schools, but shouldn’t focus more on young adults who are no able to handle these responsibilities????
Either this article is vague and leaving out some important points. So what are you saying? What kinda data this survey gonna give you?
Ms. Higgins just needs to understand that COST OF LIVING IN ANTIGUA IS HIGH AF. Persons at child bearing age are busy trying to pay off debt before bringing a child into hardship….at least that’s my reason.
Exactly
Why is the surveyor targeting 15 year olds? How many 15 year olds are parents that a survey is targeting only that age group. The last time I checked they should be taught about their bodies and human bìlogy and sexuality because they are not yet at the age of consent. This survey should be targeting adults between the ages of 25 to 35 who are educated and know the direction they want their lives to go. Prople who can really make informed decisions and wise life long choices. In my opinion we are practicing real double standard in this little island. I really don’t quite understand what information they hope to get from 15 year olds that would shed light on the low birth rate in St. John’s never mind Antigua, the region not the world.
Too much LGBT plain and simple.
The United Nation and the vaccination program is out to kill black people to reduce our population they are not going to Norway to reduce white people population they’re going to the black countries such as the Caribbean and Africa when they administer these vaccinations that they are giving us saying for flu and these order sickness that we know will not and cannot come on us unless they allow it to come the vaccination is killing the baby in the mother’s womb causing her to miscarriage let’s look it up that is what causing the low birth rate in our nation.
Dear Dirk
You obviously went to school and learnt how to read and write, but unfortunately you seem to have missed the part about critical thinking.
On any level your arguments regarding vaccination are false.
Can you cite any study that shows that vaccination is causing the death of black people?
Can you explain why the percentage of people vaccinated in Norway, the rest of Europe and anywhere else the white people predominate, is higher than where black people predominate and yet black people in those areas, along with everyone else have a longer, not shorter, life expectancy?
Please keep you ignorant racist rhetoric to yourself, vaccination has proven to be the most effective way of eliminating disease throughout the world, benefiting people of every colour
I am a 30 year old mother of 2 who has had a tubal ligation. My reason for doing so is, as a few persons mentioned, the cost of living. Most persons would like to offer their children a better life than the one they had growqing up; so we finish school, then get a degree or two. For those of us who choose to come back to Antigua, good paying jobs are few, and almost everything is ridiculously expensive; so we make informed decisions to have children or not, based on our income versus the lifestyle we wish to live, as well as our perception of comfort.
IF YOU TRULY WANT TO KNOW HOW AN AIRCRAFT WORKS DO NOT ASK A QUALIFIED AUTO MECHANIC. My apologies to the author of my source document I cannot find the author.
The politicians are fully aware of the depopulation plan for Antigua. The plan was handed to the GOVERNMENT in 1994 and is still in effect today.
Population control plan 2 billion people through war, famine, disease and ANY OTHER MEANS necessary. This apparatus, which includes various levels of the government is determining U.S. foreign policy. The targeting agency for the operation is the National Security Council’s Ad Hoc Group on Population Policy. Its policy-planning group is in the U.S.State Department’s Office of Population Affairs, established in 1975 by Henry Kissinger. This group drafted the Carter administration’s Global 2000 document, which calls for global population reduction.
The agency was assigned to carry out the directives of the NSC Ad Hoc Group. According to an NSC spokesman, Kissinger initiated both groups after discussion with leaders of the Club of Rome during the 1974 population conferences in Bucharest and Rome. The Club of Rome, controlled by Europe’s black nobility, is the primary promotion agency for the genocidal reduction of world population levels.
The influx of DOMINICANS, GUYANESE, JAMAICANS etc is not to keep ALP/ABLP in power, (that’s the red herring) they came to replace a shrinking ANTIGUAN population. “We will go into a country,” said Ferguson, “and say, here is your goddamn development plan. Start looking at the size of your population and figure out what must be done to reduce it.
Through extraordinary efforts, the Ad Hoc Group and OPA estimate that they may be able to keep a billion people from being born through contraceptive programs.
But as the Ad Hoc Group’s report states, the best efforts of the Shah of Iran to institute “clean programs” of birth control failed to make a significant dent in the country’s birth rate. The promise of jobs, through an ambitious industrialization program, encouraged migration toward “overcrowded cities” like Teheran.Now under Ayatollah Khomeini, the “clean programs” have been dismantled. The government may make progress because it has a program “to induce up to half of Teheran’s 6 million residents to relocate, as well as possible measures to keep rural migrants from moving to the cities.” Behind the back of the President Ferguson and others involved with the OPA and NSC group maintain that the United States will continue a foreign policy based on a genocidal reduction of the world’s population.
We need to invite more quality people that want to be parents to apply to our CIP program. However, they won’t want to have children either, because they have to pay a $25,000 fee to the government if they want their newborn child to have Antiguan citizenship. What a stupid government CIP policy! Eliminate the $25,000 fee for CIP parents to have a new child, then the birth rate will go up!
I dnt understand why ppl want the birth rate to go up…when Antigua wages are not enough to even allow them to move out of parents home …the basic wage a month is what…..
Most young adults are more concerned with fetes and general upkeep( weaves nails clothes shoes makeup …..cars ) …now you throw a child in that mix ….what do you get???…WHO WANT TO STRUGGLE WITH A CHILD????…WHO..
1st young ADULTS must factor in the price of raising a child on a single budget in ANTIGUA its never a guarantee the father will contribute to the rearing of the child or take financial responsibility most YOUNG ADULTS (21-30)..in my opinion is SMART..VERY SMART..weighing their OPTIONS…
INSTEAD OF PUSHING MOTHERHOOD START PUSHING MARRIAGE BEFORE MOTHERHOOD….
Is it a lower birth rate or a lower teenage pregancy rate? Anyway, big up to Tamara, a Barbudan queen.
For years we wanted less teenage pregancy so with gains in technology the youth have new awakenings. Young ppl arent studying cost of living, young ppl are being deviant and down low. From the morning after pill to DIY, young ppl know how to deal with unwanted conception. Not to mention that intercourse in this day and age has MANY VERSIONS.
Wish I could say it was due to more virtuous undertakings. SO SORRY PARENTS. Anyway, lets see what the study says, although, I believe some of the the young ppl will lie to the study administrators/on the the form.
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