Our men like being used as food cards

THE EDITOR: The questions about the high number of teenage pregnancies must surely be tied to the number of men who enjoy being used as food cards. Call it a TT cultural thing. Gainfully employed men, some single, some married, deliberately set out to play sugar daddy to vulnerable young women.

Let us leave incestuous relationships and the known paedophiles for a moment. Set aside foolish teens and playing at being sexy to impress your friends. Let’s deal with men who prey on poor single females with teenage daughters. Some mothers encourage it. Some daughters do not mind. It is a feather in their cap to say you have a rich boyfriend.

Fifteen years later you have a 30-year-old woman with three children for different men. The eldest is a girl of 14 with mother and daughter both looking like sisters. And the beat goes on.

Females getting caught up in this vicious circle of dependency are fodder for domestic violence and child abuse. What do the men care?

Serious questions have to be asked about sex education in schools. Do we become like the First World and lecture teenagers about birth control and also provide it?

TT is a multireligious, multi-ethnic country now playing hide and seek about state responsibility for teenage pregnancies, general healthcare and longevity of citizens.

We cannot keep going on this way.

LYNETTE JOSEPH, Diego Martin