New Zealand Third in World for Teenage Pregnancy and Child Maltreatment Deaths.

Many schools have recently refused to participate in a nationwide programme to vaccinate young girls against the human papillomavirus which protects against two main types of cervical cancer.

One of the reasons for their refusal to participate in the scheme are that young women may become sexually active at too young an age. Cervical cancer is the third most common cause of cancer in women aged 25-44 in New Zealand, every year 60 die will die from it.

Statistics on the Nationmaster website show that New Zealand has the dubious honour of being placed third highest in world tables of both teenage pregnancy and child maltreatment deaths.

Nationmaster, which pulls together data from sources such as the CIA World Fact Book, United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that New Zealand has 1.2 child maltreatment deaths per 100,000 children. This places it joint third with Hungary. Only two countries have higher figures - Mexico and the USA both with 2.2. deaths per 100,000.

Figures for teen pregnancy places the USA in top slot with a staggering 52.1 per births per thousand women aged 15-19, with the UK second at 30.8 and NZ third with 29.8

New Zealand has no taught sex education lessons for children in its schools, which perhaps accounts for some of the high numbers of teenage pregnancies.