Pregnant teens, swelling in numbers

TO GO WITH Thailand-social-health-sex,FEATURE by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS This photo taken on October 28, 2013 shows Thai teen students putting balloons under their shirts so they look pregnant during a sex education program at Panyapiwat school in Bangkok. According to the United Nations, the birthrate among Thai teenagers was 47 per 1,000 girls from 2006 to 2010 -- roughly in line with neighbouring Cambodia, but higher than Malaysia's 14. But Thailand has a low overall birthrate of just 1.5 or 1.6 births per woman, showing that access to contraception is not the problem. AFP PHOTO / PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL

Thanks to sex education, Thailand has managed to keep its overall birthrate down, but the message has not been getting across to its school-going population.

JUST days away from giving birth and living apart from her family, 16-year-old Ying is one of a growing number of teenagers becoming pregnant every year in Thailand, a country where sex education is focused on the married.