An 11-year-old girl is pregnant in Lithuania, Ilma Skuodienė, head of the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service, confirmed to LRT.lt.
“It’s shocking, but it’s true,” she said, adding that the information about the pregnant girl reached the services in Lithuanian in late September.
To protect the pregnant minor and her relatives, LRT.lt does not publish the details of the municipality where she lives.
The girl was 11 years and 11 months old when the pregnancy was diagnosed and is now three months pregnant. According to information available to LRT.lt, the child’s father is 16 years old.
According to Skuodienė, the service is assessing the situation and providing assistance. The police have opened a pre-trial investigation into the incident.
“We are providing all the necessary assistance to both the child and her mother, psychological and social,” said the head of the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service.
Commenting on the incident, she stressed the importance of good family relations, trust, and sex education.
“It is imperative that parents, teachers, and educators talk about sexual violence, about boundaries, about relationships, about who can and cannot touch the body, about what kind of relationships can exist,” Skuodienė said.
“Pregnancies at such a young age are very rare, but even one case is a lot,” she added.
From this academic year, Lithuanian secondary school students are being taught “life skills”, a programme that includes classes on safe traffic, emotional well-being, and sex education.
The programme, however, is heavily criticised by conservatively-minded parent organisations and politicians, who say that it encourages children to have premarital sex and teaches tolerance towards LGBTQ+ people.
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