The boy wants to have sex without a condom; the girl is worried he will walk out on her if she says no. Finally, she gives in but soon after finds herself pregnant. Raging with anger, he dumps her. Sitting on plastic chairs around the room, they represent the universal teenage look: girls with dark eye makeup, countless jewelry trinkets and tight-fitting clothes; and guys with baggy T-shirts, gelled hair and baby faces.
Everyone is in jeans. Afterward in small groups, the audience discusses the video. It was founded in but expanded greatly in with financing from the Netherlands and Finland. But their embassies are actually leaving Nicaragua at the end of the year because of economic and political reasons β the latter related to widespread corruption, they say.
Yet in this conservative religious country of nearly six million people, talk about sex is hardly a given. For two decades, sex education in schools was banned. Since , it has become part of the national curriculum in theory, but the teaching is sporadic at best. While the Roman Catholic church officially has no say in the educational system, the moral values it promotes run deep in society. What is taught focuses on sexual biology instead of how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
Nicaragua is the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, behind Haiti. Nearly half the population lives below the official poverty line and, though poverty is declining, more than 80 percent of the poor live in the countryside. Health care services in rural areas remain minimal and roads can be nonexistent, particularly on the Caribbean side of the country, where boat service is often the only choice of transportation.
Schooling is seriously low for most Nicaraguans. The ban has led to more maternal deaths, human-rights groups say. So it may come as no surprise that the country has the highest number of teenage pregnancies in Latin America and the highest outside Africa.
