Venezuela Crisis Pushes Women Into ‘Forced Motherhood’

The extent of Venezuela's birth control shortage and the impact on women is difficult to quantify in part because the government has not released information on key indicators such as teenage pregnancy since 2012. According to those dated figures, just over 23% of births in Venezuela were to women younger than 20.

Some independent health organizations and women's rights groups contend the rate could now be as high as 28%. A study of four hospitals last year found that more than a quarter of the births recorded were to teenage mothers.

The most recent U.N. world population report estimates Venezuela's teen pregnancy rate is about 85.3 per 1,000 adolescents ages 15-19. That figure would be a slight decline, though is still more than twice the global rate. By comparison, Colombia's rate is 66.7 per 1,000 teens ages 15-19.

"We don't know what the reality is in 2019," said Nelmary Díaz, a program director the Civil Association for Family Planning, which runs several clinics and has operated since 1986. "That worries us."

After years of denying the existence of a humanitarian crisis, Maduro recently has begun allowing international aid. While a large part of the emergency assistance has gone to food and medicine, a small portion is going toward reproductive health.

The U.N. Population Fund has imported 45,000 hormonal implants so far, with the government's authorization. An estimated 17,000 have been distributed at hospitals and clinics like the one in Caucaguita, where women line up before dawn.

"I don't want to have more kids," said Yailyn Salas, 20, the mother of a 9-month-old son in the line. "I want to close the shop."

Among the millions of Venezuelans who have chosen to flee the country are thousands of pregnant women. In Colombia, more than 26,000 Venezuelan women have given birth since August 2015. That surge is straining Colombia's fragile health care system and testing the nation's welcoming approach toward Venezuelan immigrants.

In recent months, the mayor of one large Colombian city likened Venezuelans to "a poor baby factory," and a popular newspaper columnist implored them to "stop giving birth."

"If you don't stop reproducing like you are, it's going to be even harder to see you as an opportunity for growth instead of a problem," journalist Claudia Palacios wrote.

Ramírez found out she was pregnant at 14 with her boyfriend of one year. Condoms and birth control pills were impossible to find or too expensive, she said. When she told her boyfriend the news, Ramírez said, he responded coldly. He was 23 and already a father. He told her that he couldn't handle another responsibility.

She hasn't heard from him since.

Adolescent moms under 15 are twice as likely to die during pregnancy. Though Ramírez had access to prenatal care, doctors had to perform an emergency C-section after the baby's heartbeat became irregular.

"She was born practically dead," Ramírez said, her soft voice turning somber.

Ramírez's ordeal to find birth control is not unusual. An independent survey of 151 pharmacies consulted over a five-month period last year found some contraceptives such as the patch could not be found at all in Venezuela, while others including birth control pills are nearly out of supply.

Even with this year's increased aid, experts say Venezuela will need far more to address the needs of the estimated 9 million women in the country who may unwillingly become pregnant.

"It's a very small impact," said Jorge Díaz Polanco, a sociologist with the independent Venezuelan Observatory of Health.

Clemente's brigade was able to get ahold of a handful of the U.N.-provided implants that prevent ovulation and last four years. On two recent days, her team set up shop at a clinic where posters in support of socialist leaders filled the walls. They quickly got to work, injecting each woman with an anesthetic and then sticking a small metal tube into their upper arm so the implant could be pushed through.

By 11:30 a.m. the contraceptives were gone.

"The implants have run out!" an organizer dressed in a faded Stone Temple Pilots T-shirt shouted.

Nearly 40 women were still in line. Some sighed. Others were visibly angry.

"I feel deceived," said Salas, who missed the cutoff.

She said a nearby health organization was selling birth control implants at a subsidized cost of around 90,000 bolivars, or $6.50. That is just slightly less than what her husband makes an in an entire week.

"If I get one, I don't eat," she said.

Ramírez and her sister were among the lucky few to get the last of the implants after they showed Clemente's team their negative tests. Their mom had managed to get them the money.

Three other women that day would learn they were pregnant.

Ramírez cringed as a nurse injected her with the anesthetic before placing the implant. Just as the procedure finished, the lights in the building went out — the second blackout in the neighborhood that week.

Ramírez left the darkened clinic with her baby in her arm, relieved to know she wouldn't become a mom again soon.

"I'm not ready to have a child," she said as her baby began to cry. "I'm a girl who is 15."

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