A 13-year-old girl has given birth to triplets in the capital of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. The father is a 61-year-old man who is now on the run from authorities who are looking to charge him with sexually abusing a child.
The young mother told local media she was ‘happy’ with her three sons, whom she has named Samuel, Joshua and Jovanny. According to the Daily Mail, all three children are in the intensive care ward of a local hospital as the births were premature, but are all expected to survive.
The age of consent is 18 in the Dominican Republic, yet it has one of the highest teen pregnancies in the world.
Nearly 15 per cent of 15-19-year-olds in the Dominican Republic are mothers, with hundreds of babies born to girls under the age of 15 every year. The Dominican Republic’s Code of Minors has recently been revised and has strengthened provisions against child abuse, including physical and emotional mistreatment, sexual exploitation and child labour. The offences of child abuse carry a sentence of between 20 and 30 years and $2,000 to $10,000 fine.