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Knowledge and Inquiry (CSLY504)                                                                  The Trios

"How has teenage pregnancy impacted the Maori and Pacific Communities in New Zealand?"

Teenage pregnancy has increased over the few years according the New Zealand fertility statistics (2017). It has discussed the increase of teenage pregnancy in our society. The graph does show an increase yet we are still ranked third internationally and it is problematic within our society. The question has been narrowed down to looking into the Maori and Pacific communities which in (Ware,Breheny & Forster,n.d) mentions that it is part of the culture. The culture meaning people will expect polynesian teenagers to become young parents not because they were taught to do it but it is because we have seen the continuation of teenage pregnancy increasing in our families. The reason behind the research to stop teenage pregnancy being a tradition in our Polynesian culture or better yet to decrease it. Furthermore, to give more support and not let the consequences of our society morals of saying that teenage pregnancy is wrong and overcome it in order to accept that people do make mistakes but as a whole need to support them. Our essay will support the research with stating the impacts of teenage pregnancy in our Polynesian communities, how New Zealand currently supports teenage parents, factors teenage mothers face, explaining if it is a taboo subject in our community lastly, solutions or preventions.

What are the factors faced by the adolescent?

Maori whanau and pacific families nowadays mostly have low income. One of the reason why their some of the families are poor because there is not enough to provide goods for their families, so if teenagers from these two communities become pregnant, surely they are going to be confused of how to take care of their babies. The factors facing by teenage pregnancy are : low income, no job, their babies daddies leave them to look after the baby alone, low self-esteem, peer pressure, family breakdown, poverty, low education expectations and so much more. When a teenage girl become pregnant especially at the age of 16 and over, we all know what is going to happen like what I have mentioned above. All of these can give them more pressure, confusing even more complicated in life. They are going to look down at themselves and thinking of doing abortion which is not a good at all, some of them get to experience abusing or being persecuted by friends and families. According to New Zealand medical journal (initiation of maternity care for young Maori women under 20 years of age) it says that Maori teenagers who become pregnant at such young age lived in deprived areas at most. It means they ended living poor or in poverty. This article says that local people and international evidence recommend about being young and pregnant is a risk factor for poor health outcomes for both mother and baby. They said that 20 years girls pregnant are at higher risk of stillbirth and neonatal death. This means it is not good at all to become pregnant at a young age. We not only cared about poor babies but our health also as a girl point of view. Talking about family breakdown, one of the reason why girls gave up their babies or get rid of them. Pacific parents are call strict people around the world. They treat their kids in a way that they want to see in the future. If an island girl become pregnant or even do something bad. In some cultures they totally believe its ashamed for the family name, they said that this one mistake is going to let their family, community and even their culture down. This can also lead them to suicidals. For example, I picked this article from Unicef (Pacific Island countries) it was about this Fijian girl name Mohini who became pregnant at the age of 17 and she got twins. She was facing so many difficulties between people that knows her well and her school, she was smart and everyone likes her but when she got pregnant, hardly anyone from school or even the family likes her, people got to say something negative behind her back or even saying it straight to her face. Many people told her that she is letting her family name down, her father as well got abusive. She wanted to go school to start over again and take her final exams but they won’t allow her, all because of this one mistake. She became suicidal and wanted to end everything. We see that there's always positives and negatives in many situations. In Maori society they are fine if girls become pregnant at a young age, but having low income is what the problem is, when they giving birth to their babies, many of them ending up living in poverty or just leave the baby at home with their aunts or grandparents and run away from home. Pacific people some family are alright if their girls become pregnant younger, but most of people said that this will let the culture and family down, which is right though. Both communities situations have positives and negatives as well.

What are the impacts of teenage pregnancy in the Maori and pacific communities in New Zealand?

Throughout the Maori and the Pacific communities within New Zealand, one of the rare problems that they have in common is teenage pregnancy. Teenage pregnancy is usually referred to teenagers from ages 13-19, and this is understood when a girl has not completed her secondary school of the beginning of tertiary studies, causing them to become a teen-parent at a very young age. Research shows that New Zealand is ranked the third highest country resulting teenage pregnancy, however within New Zealand there are a decrease in teenage pregnancy within our Maori communities leaving us with a birth rate of 23.8 births per 1,000 women who were ranked from ages 15-19 in 2013. (Current trends for teenage births in New Zealand, 2013). Whereas nearly one in 10 babies were born to women under the age of 20 within our pacific communities, this is usually caused by lack of support given by the families or the schools. Education providers are providing the students with the right equipment needed to help them broaden their knowledge on the what they need to refrain themselves from being sexually active. (Wairarapa, 2013) states, there has been a concern in pregnancy throughout the past years within our society. It is well known that the use of contraception is not as popular within our communities. Contraception has not been widely used by teenagers for the past 10 years, which was shown in the percentage of active students who were using contraception (prevention from pregnancy) has remained unchanged at about 60% across the three youth surveys in 2001, 2007, 2017. As this has not been unchanged over the three years this has caused the pregnancy rates with our community to increase over the years.

In some pacific communities it is taught the different beliefs and attitudes of how they undergo their sexual health issues. In Samoa a pregnancy of a girl is usually caused by the behavioral affects that they live by. In saying this, in most cases ‘teine lelei’ and ‘tama lelei’ (Good Samoan girl and good Samoan boy) are known to abide orders from their parents, however when a Samoan girl falls pregnant this is misled into being the fault of the parents. Why? Because there is a lack of support given from the adults to their children or a lack of discipline within our Samoan families. It is believed that this is also how most pacific communities carry out the impacts of the pregnancy of their daughters. In New Zealand, it is important that there are open clinics for young teens to go seek help if they feel that confronting their parents are unsafe. However, sexual health behavior within our Samoan youth has increased, and many are influenced by their peers or peer-pressured by their partners to have sexual intercourse as a way of expressing love.

Rates of births per 1,000 females ages 15-19 was most popular for the Asian/Pacific Islanders in the year 2007 which slowly decreased in 2010 and remained at 10% for at least 3 (2010-2013) years and managed to drop furthermore in 2015 (About teen pregnancy, 2017). These figures show that there has been an improvement within our pacific communities. However, the rates of teenager being pregnant are still at risk. Young teenage girls, are still influenced by many of their friends are have grown up in an environment where falling pregnant at a young age was normal for them, or their parents are young parents who also holds a history of being a teen mother. As peer pressure was mentioned earlier, being in a unhealthy relationship with your partner, could possibly cause pregnancy, how? There could be no formal consent from either person into having unprotected intercourse which may lead to factors of teen pregnancy.

Touching base on being influenced by your friends or family members, this could mean that the child has been bought up in an environment where they only visualise young members in the family getting pregnant from ages 15-20 (Teen mothers), this is also unhealthy because if the child’s mind is train to see this, they are also being trained to grow into grow up with the belief of falling pregnant or hanging around with the wrong group of people as normal. This is very common in both our communities, we are easily distracted and influenced by the people we surround ourselves with. Hence, why as mentioned above that is important that discipline become an ordinary thing for our communities. Discipline plays a big role within the Samoan culture; however, it tends to fade as we are now in New Zealand abiding and following the laws of anti-smacking and child abuse, but there are many ways instead of physical abuse to discipline your children, and starting off with a Samoan youth within Aotearoa, which openly speaks about the sexual behaviour and gives out advice as to how to undergo a unhealthy relationship with your partner, would count as discipline.

Why is teenage pregnancy a taboo subject in our communities?

The question that should be asked is it even a taboo topic in the Maori and pacific communities in the first place?. If it was not taboo then would you not think there is no increase especially in our Maori and Pacific communities. As mentioned in Radio New Zealand (2017) mentions that Samoan young teenagers especially girls who find out they are going to be mothers have aborted their baby or gave up the baby due to not wanting anything to do with the unborn baby. The reason behind this is that the lack of sex education in lower socioeconomic areas. The talk most white children have with their parents and the safe and unsafe things about having it whereas, Polynesian children have to think of only school, and it is not the school job to tell the children should it be the parents job too?. It becomes more taboo because no one talks about, no one wants to mention it due to it being a cause of kids wanting to actually do it but in this case it should not. It should not affect or stop polynesian parents from talking to their children about sex and the consequences of being a young mother with no education or job. Young teenagers abort the baby to save them from letting their family down especially as pacific islanders holding up the representation of their parents.

Wurzburg (2016) talks about the domestic violence but the part in the article which relates to it being taboo is to support the idea of perfectionist. No one tells anybody anything bad because they want to uphold the perfect image that they portray to others yet they suffer the consequence because they do not want anybody to talk about it. Faitala (gossip) is a main thing pacific islander do when they find something out and like to blame the parents if not always the mother. This uphold perfect image we always try to portray is part of the culture when it should not. A shame it is to tell others that your sixteen year old daughter who is still in school is pregnant yet when palagis / white families find out they praise as if it is a blessing even though they know it is wrong but what more can you do about it?. This perfect image we always try to uphold all the time becomes a problem. It makes teenagers who become parents abort the baby or think of running away because this image that should not be part of our culture which somehow is. It makes the subject of teenage pregnancy more taboo than it is in our Maori and Pacific communities.

Journal of the Polynesian society (n.d) has talked about the beliefs and myths and also the tapu (sacred) of pregnancy. The abortion is not an option in our communities because of the religion we uphold yet, the reason why most still does it is because of the gossip they will face when entering church. Being a young teenage mother gets a lot of shame for it because as mentioned in the article we praise our girls. Your brother is your protector and you are the image or representation of the family which is why most pacific girls find it hard to talk about being pregnant with their families. This perfectionist image we try to uphold all the time and the pressure we always put onto our females of the pacific makes it harder for them to understand that we should not be ashamed if we do become young mothers. It is of course at fault but instead of making it look like teenage pregnancy is against our culture, we should show support. It becomes a taboo subject because it’s a consequence to our culture values and tradition whereas compared to white families it is wrong but they do not shame the kid, they count it as a blessing and move on whereas Maori and Pacific Islanders it goes through a lot of trouble to make it count as a blessing.

Taboo is the fact that no one talks about it, for example suicide in our Maori and Pacific communities. Teenage pregnancy and not having the support they need leads to depression then youth suicide. Our communities need more fund and more education for students and parents about the importance of contraception and the consequences you may face if you do fall pregnant. Lower decile schools have less opportunities to these sex talks which why they have an overpopulation in teenage pregnancy in New Zealand. Not only that, but to stop portraying that grace is more important that support for your children. Maybe, count it as a blessing because of it being a factor of the teenager being more mature.

Radio New Zealand (2017) also stated that one of our pacific communities i.e. Samoa should encourage to lift taboos, this is meant that families should be able to communicate openly to one another about their concerning issues. One of the great examples mentioned was that Samoan had a lot of issues regarding the abandoning children’s or mother’s infanticide. Infanticide is when the mother is in actions of her child. Therefore, there is a raise in awareness and encouragement to lift taboos within this specific community. They have also mentioned in another article written that Samoans should be encouraged to discuss teen pregnancy within their community or reach out to their Samoan community leaders in New Zealand who are able to encourage and comfort them with their devastating issues. It should be important that our young generations have the sense of courage to reach out for help when needed especially when finding out that becoming a teen mother at a young age will ruin not only her future but the reputation of her parents and family.

What support do the adolescent receive?

Firstly, lets discuss the support that teenage parents are able to receive in New Zealand. Counties Manukau (2017) have conducted a research to discuss the plan to help pacific families especially infants and children. The graph showed on the pdf that only 85% pacific kid sunder the age of 4 are enrolled in an oral health service but by the age of 30% most kids are not enrolled in dental health care. With it being compared to non-pacific islanders 90% and 65% are enrolled and carries free. Teenagers are also valid to go on work and income benefits or also if single parent then sole parent income.

Most dependency on social welfare which in (Ware et al.,n.d) examines that 15% New Zealand's population identify themselves as Maori but have high percent of teenage mothers. The articles further discuss the consequences that Maori parents have on their dependence on social welfare. If they depend so much on it then what motivation do they have to find a job with better pay? It’s the consequences of being pregnant at a young age that they have to face therefore they suffer the consequences. The reason behind the decency is because of its traditional values whereas white families have support for young parents where pacific islanders do not.

The cause of the increase in teenage pregnancy is due to the lack of government responses. The article (Ware et al.,n.d) furthers their studies of young Maori parents who are dependent on welfare money to financially raise themselves and their infant. Due to this it has increased in the over-population of Maoris in using Welfare. The aftermath of not being provided financially/education wise - It is what most people need in order to raise themselves and their infant. The conflict for not enough facilities or opportunities to financially stable a family and raise the unborn infant. This teenage parent are referred to ages between sixteen to eighteen who are most dependant on the welfare when becoming parents and not finding jobs because of their state or the fact they did not finish National certificate of educational achievement (ncea) which is what most need to get a good paid job.

Most young teenagers cannot continue with their studies due to the baby being a factor and only a limited school across New Zealand have facilities where they can continue their studies with the baby being present on in day care the facility provides. The government needs more support for teenage pregnancy and providing it with the necessities in raising their unborn child. The child would need the essentials but the job cannot be done unless the the parents have the education provided and the job that could help them financially.

Most lose families over this as mentioned before about the upholding of their perfect image. This is only because some families care about their image and try and get rid of things that bring them shame well in this case, teenage pregnancy. It is not part of our culture to give shame but to give out respect and kindness yet none of this is given if shame is presented. The teenage mother needs at least someone relevant to midwifery to help her with the infant for at least two weeks to give her guidance on how to raise the baby and what it needs especially when teenagers are not educated in these field. Most teenage mothers raise the baby on their own without the support of the father, the Mother will then need a lot of support to raise the baby if not can give the baby up for adoption rather than abortion as an option. Government supports them financially but it is not enough to raise them and the infant and these young parents need more support from where ever they are able to receive it.

New Zealand Herald (2017) talks about the life of a teen mom, the hardship they go through but the positive outcomes you are able to receive. The struggle was living in her cousin’s garage with her son, and taking him every day to school and back. Her goal was to make it in the police force one day to show that not everyone needs to go through one path to get where you need to be. The Herald further discusses that most of them lack in services in being educated and also the factor of disempowerment in Maori communities with knowing that a child belongs to a teenager. Everyone has different access and paths which is why we have an overrepresentation of Maori and pacific communities in the increase of teenage pregnancy. Herald says there’s no explicit reason behind our high teenage pregnancy rates but we do have some reasons for instance, the reasons mentioned previously in this essay.

Taufua (2015) talks about pacific communities in New Zealand and the deal ship with teenage pregnancy. The research further conducts that the over-representation has been proven as evidence that pacific teenage mothers are twice more than Europeans who become teen parents. It follows through with the discussion of financial states that pacific teenage parents face with also the comparison between the Polynesian culture with who has the most teenage pregnancies in their culture. The reason for the research being conducted was to give hope to teenage mothers and to get information in the background on the increase of teenage pregnancy in our New Zealand communities. The reason for the increase is not explicit meaning no one can give an actual answer to it yet all we can learn from here is the fact that our pacific communities have a percentage that is two more times than Europeans / non-pacific cultures.

The teenage mothers need a lot of support especially in our lower rural communities with less access to opportunities. Financially and emotional support from the government and not depend on social welfare and decrease the over-representation of Maori using welfare and depend on it to raise their children. The solution part should discuss ways we can depend on instead of using social welfare. It is a hard job because of the unsettlement of life, these teenagers are still young and have not finish their education yet alone, are not mature enough to raise a baby and no minimum paying wage job to help them out.

Solutions:

There are so many ways to prevent teenage pregnancy. Once teenage girls become pregnant they should have the talk sex with someone who can trust or their mothers. Have an appointment with a counselor, encourage abstinence, laying out the consequence. There is a saying like this “girls trust their mothers more than someone else”. At the islands this quote always right to them, because it is true, if something happen to a girl, mother always be there to support her up, even though they crowd and gets angry at them for some reasons but never forget that no love compares to the love of a mother to her daughter. The best way to prevent pregnancy is to discuss first, clear the misunderstanding and let the mum saying some courage words to her daughter. That will make them feel warm and release the pressure out of them. Because once a girl become pregnant they always feel pressure afterwards. Pacific and maori communities should encourage teenagers to have love for others. Tell them to respect teenage girls who become pregnant, give them advice to look after their babies well. Do activities so other teenagers will learn from it. All of above can really help our girls who become pregnant at young ages. Everyone deserves to be happy and feel warm like to be at home. No one will ever wants to see someone fail or even face trials in life because of something small that we think we cannot solve it. Love is what really matters and that is the key of everything we do. Teach teenagers or adolescent pregnancies to take care of their babies no matter how stressful they going to be. Be more careful if hearing negativities because some girls cannot handle it and go do something straight away. It is very important that we help others in the community no matter who they are, where they from, if wrong we know how to make it right, we all have wrongdoings but at the end of the day, we still are one.

In conclusion, we have touched based on various influence and impacts of teen pregnancy and the causes of why the rates has increased and decreased over the years. Throughout the essay we briefly touched based on two main communities such as the Maoris and the Pacific communities, talked about the different beliefs and values that each community holds and how pregnancy can affect the social and cultural side of each communities. It is important that we understand our traditional beliefs and respect and abide all given rules in order for us to stay out of trouble. Trouble as in females becoming pregnant at the ages of 14-19, it would be useful if our governments are able to look into the educational system and either add in more education based around the topic of sexuality/Sexual intercourse to help prevent pregnancy amongst the females within our communities. Another solution could be building more pacific and Maori health centres so that the teenagers are able to seek help if they are either too scared, embarrassed, or unsure whether to share with a parent is the right thing to do. In New Zealand in general, there should be more promotions about teen pregnancy to reduce the rates of birth each year. Solutions like these were also mentioned above, and they should be heard and not should be just ideas crossing minds, there should be actions taken further for this to help the young females who struggles or who are experiencing teenage pregnancy.

Reference:

Academic Sources:

Veukiso-Ulugia, A. (2016). 'Good Sāmoan kids' - fact or fable? Sexual health behaviour of Sāmoan youth in Aotearoa New Zealand. New Zealand Sociology, 31(2), 74-95.

O'BRIEN, L., DENNY, S., CLARK, T., FLEMING, T., TEEVALE, T., & ROBINSON, E. (2013). The impact of religion and spirituality on the risk behaviours of young people in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Youth Studies Australia, 32(4), 25-37.

Alianmoghaddam, N., Phibbs, S., & Benn, C. (2018). The impact of family culture on six months exclusive breastfeeding: A qualitative study in New Zealand. Breastfeeding Review, 26(1), 23-36.

Ware, F., Breheny, M., & Forster, M. (n.d). The politics of government 'support' in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Reinforcing and reproducing the poor citizenship of young Maori parents. Critical Social Policy, 37(4), 499-519.

Adcock, A., Lawton, B., & Cram, F. (n.d). E Hine: Talking about Maori teen pregnancy with government groups. Alternative: An International Journal Of Indigenous Peoples, 12(4), 380.

Some Modern Samoan Beliefs Concerning Pregnancy, Birth And Infancy (Journal of the Polynesian Society). (n.d).

The Lore Of The Whare Kohanga, Part II, Pregnancy (Journal of the Polynesian Society). (n.d).

Other sources:

Teen pregnancy a women concern. (2013). Retrieved from: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/wairarapa-times-age/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503414&objectid=11162823

About teen pregnancy. (2015). Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/index.htm

Samoan encouraged to discuss teen pregnancy. (2017) retrieved from: https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/335523/samoans-encouraged-to-discuss-teen-pregnancy

Samoans encourage to lift taboos (2017) retrieved from: https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/335351/samoans-encouraged-to-lift-taboos

https://www.babymed.com/blogs/summer-banks/has-teen-pregnancy-always-been-taboo

Radio New Zealand .(2018). Retrived from https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/201851780/calls-to-end-secrecy-over-unwanted-samoan-teen-pregnancies

http://www.hma.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Chapter-9-Polynesian-families.pdf

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Counties Manukau. (2017). Retrieved from http://www.countiesmanukau.health.nz/assets/About-CMH/Reports-and-planning/Maori-and-pacific-health/2017-0711-2017-18-CMHealth-Pacific-Health-Plan-FINAL.pdf

New Zealand Herald. (2017). Retrived from https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11906751

Taufua, Seine. (2015) A mother’s hope :pacific teenage pregnancy in New Zealand. Retrived from https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/handle/2292/24696

https://www.unicef.org/pacificislands/1849_2919.html

https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/read-the-journal/all-issues/2010-2019/2014/vol-126-no-1393/article-makowharemahihi