Romania, the country where 1 in 10 children born has a minor mother. What the state's strategy looks like to reduce the number of teenage mothers
Romania is the EU country with the most underage mothers. It is a finding that appears annually in the statistics, but which, concretely, is not targeted by measures to solve it. The National Health Strategy briefly touches on the issue of reproduction, while the Reproductive Health Strategy remains a draft at the Ministry of Health, says Adriana Radu, president of the Sexul vs Barza NGO.
In 2024, of the 148,916 registered births, 17,746 (9.90%) were to mothers under 19: 620 girls under 15 and 14,126 teenage girls aged 15-19, according to the INS.
Almost 1 in 10 children born in Romania has a minor mother.
A Save the Children report from 2024 showed that approximately 45% of girls under the age of 15 who became mothers in the European Union states come from Romania.
As of 2012, 10% of registered births were attributed to teenage mothers. “The recurring presence of this phenomenon, characterized by motherhood among young women, has become a constant in the context of Romanian society,” writes the Save the Children report.
According to the annual Index on the end of childhood, prepared by the organization, which compares data for 172 countries and which evaluates where there are the most and where there are the fewest children whose childhood was “kidnapped”, Romania faces a higher number of teenage births than countries such as Rwanda, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Burundi or India.
“As a result of the lack of access to care and education for sexual health and reproduction, the rate of births registered among teenage girls between 15 and 19 years old is the most worrying, with Romania recording 34 births per 1,000 teenage girls,” the report notes.
What is Romania doing to combat the number of underage mothers?
The Plan of the National Health Strategy 2023-2030 “For health, together” (SNS), briefly includes some information on reproductive issues, to “expand and improve family planning and reproductive health services”.
There is, however, an alternative to this, says the NGO for sexual education, Sexul vs Barza – Reproductive Health Strategy Plan (SR) – in draft stage at the Ministry of Health.
“While the National Health Strategy provides the administrative and financial architecture, the Reproductive Health Strategy Action Plan provides the clinical content and practice norms necessary to ensure reproductive rights and risk-free motherhood in Romania,” explains Adriana Radu, president of the sexual health NGO Sexul vs Barza.
The president of Sexul vs Barza, Adriana Radu, made an analysis between the two plans, but her conclusion was short: “a lot is missing”.
1. Level of detail and specific objectives
- National Health Strategy 2023-2030: It includes reproductive health under the overall objective of increasing the number of healthy life years. The main line of action is “expanding and improving family planning and reproductive health services”.
- Strategy for Reproductive Health: It applies specific measures, such as the replacement of curettage with modern methods (medical abortion), the regulation of doctors' refusal on grounds of conscience by ensuring referral to other units and the inclusion of contraceptives in the list of compensated drugs.
2. Human Resources
- National Health Strategy 2023-2030: It focuses on equitable distribution and professionalization of managers.
- Strategy for Reproductive Health: It “radically” redefines the role of midwives, calling for their inclusion in the health law, with a role that provides medical services: midwives will be able to perform ultrasounds to diagnose pregnancy and prescribe medication.
3. The network of family planning offices
- National Health Strategy 2023-2030: It targets large investments in infrastructure (regional hospitals, modernization of 3,000 family medicine offices).
- Strategy for Reproductive Health: It specifically focuses on the network of family planning offices.
4. Education and sexual health
- National Health Strategy 2023-2030: It sets the target for health education to become a compulsory subject in schools by 2030.
- Strategy for Reproductive Health: It defines the content of this education, with a focus on the prevention of underage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. It also proposes an application where young people can ask anonymous questions to specialists.
About what the state could do better to reduce the number of teenage mothers, Adriana Radu says that “such reductions probably occur due to the introduction of sex education in combination with the provision of sexual health services adapted to young people”.
She adds that sex education alone is “not enough,” and neither are services alone. “Change is also needed in the service system, but also in the promotion of health and education”, concludes the expert from Sexul vs Barza.
The “In the (K)now: Reproductive Rights in Romania” project is carried out by the SEXUL vs BARZA Association and aims to raise awareness of reproductive rights as fundamental values of the European Union. Hotnews is a media partner of the Association SEXUL vs. STORK in this project. The project is financed by the European Union. However, the opinions expressed belong to those cited and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the European Union or The Netherlands Helsinki Committee. Neither the European Union nor The Netherlands Helsinki Committee can be held responsible for, nor had access to, the content of the article prior to publication.
