"When nearly a third of all women in developing countries are becoming mothers during adolescence, it is clear the world is failing adolescent girls,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem. Credit: Michael Duff/UNFPA

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jul 8 2022 (IPS)

While women and girls have been so far enjoying some of their due rights in Western high-income countries, the overwhelming majority of teenagers and adult women in the impoverished regions of the current world’s population of 8 billions continue to suffer all kinds of inequalities.

Such a harsh reality does not only impact their basic human rights, like equal treatment, same rights as men in decision-making, working conditions, payment, property, healthcare, staggering poverty and a very long etcetera, but also the pressing need to guarantee their right to protection against all sorts of gender violence, abuse, rape, and the consequences of unwanted, unintended pregnancies in particular among teenagers and child girls.

Almost one third of women in developing countries had their first baby while they were still in their teens, the report shows, with nearly half of those new mothers aged 17 and younger – still children themselves

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) released ahead of the 2022 World Population Day on 11 July, an extensive report titled the Gender and income inequalities driving teenage motherhood in developing countries.

Almost one third of women in developing countries had their first baby while they were still in their teens, the report shows, with nearly half of those new mothers aged 17 and younger – still children themselves.

Inequalities, entrenched

Gender-based and income inequalities, adds the report, are highlighted as key in fuelling teen pregnancies by increasing child marriage rates, keeping girls out of school, restricting their career aspirations, and limiting health care and information on safe, consensual sex.

Entrenching these inequalities are climate disasters, COVID-19 and conflict, which are all upending lives around the world, obliterating livelihoods and making it more difficult for girls to afford or even physically reach school and health services.

This leaves tens of millions yet more vulnerable to child marriage and early pregnancy, adds UNFPA.

“When nearly a third of all women in developing countries are becoming mothers during adolescence, it is clear the world is failing adolescent girls,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem.

“The repeat pregnancies we see among adolescent mothers are a glaring signpost that they desperately need sexual and reproductive health information and services.”

Adolescent motherhood

Most births among girls under the age of 18 in 54 developing countries are reported as taking place within a marriage or union. Although more than half of those pregnancies were classified as “intended”, young girls’ ability to decide whether to have children can be severely constrained.

Indeed, the report finds that adolescent pregnancy is often – albeit not always – driven by a lack of meaningful choice, limited agency, and even force or coercion. See, for example: Daughters of a Lesser God: 800 Million Girls Forced to Be Mothers.

Even in contexts where adolescent motherhood is considered acceptable and planned for, it can carry “serious and long-term repercussions, especially when health-care systems fail to ensure accessible sexual and reproductive care and information for this vulnerable age group.”

Complications, deaths

Complications in pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death among girls aged 15 to 19 years, who are also far more likely to suffer a litany of other violations of their human rights, from forced marriage and intimate partner violence to serious mental health impacts of bearing children before they are out of childhood themselves.

Girls who give birth in adolescence also often go on to have more than one baby in quick succession – which can be dangerous both physically and psychologically.

“Among those who first gave birth at age 14 or younger, nearly three quarters had a second baby before they turned 20, and a staggering 40% of those had a third before they left their teens.

Why is child motherhood so high?

Adolescent births now account for 16% of all births in the world, and the report shows women who began childbearing in adolescence had almost five births by the time they reached age 40, warns the report.

“With inequalities and humanitarian crises multiplying and intensifying, we know women and girls are bearing an unequal burden of the consequent physical, psychological and economic turmoil.”

Furthermore…

Also according to the report, in conflict as in climate disasters, schools and health facilities are frequently reduced to rubble and devoid of staff and equipment.

Insecurity and violence render it impossible for people to move around even for basic necessities, including contraception and other critical sexual and reproductive health care.

“Crises and displacement are also known to lead to spikes in gender-based and sexual violence, in turn causing more sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies from rape, and rising rates of forced and child marriages as parents struggle to cope with financial hardship and aching hunger.”

Under these circumstances, access to employment, education and health services is disrupted or suspended entirely, pushing girls out of school, women out of the workforce and leading child marriages and unintended pregnancies to soar.

Seeing the Unseen

UNFPA’s State of World Population Report 2022: Seeing the Unseen highlights the alarming figure that almost half of all pregnancies in the world are unintended and explores the health, human right, humanitarian and socio-economic linkages of unintended pregnancies.

This is including the issue of gender-based violence, the increased barrier women face in accessing reproductive health services in conflict settings and the risks related to unsafe abortions.

In its report on World Population Day: “A world of 8 billion: Towards a resilient future for all – Harnessing opportunities and ensuring rights and choices for all,” for the first time in history, we are seeing extreme diversity in the mean age of countries and the fertility rates of populations.”

While the populations of a growing number of countries are ageing and about 60% of the world’s population live in countries with below-replacement fertility of 2.1 children per woman, other countries have huge youth populations and keep growing pace.

But focus should be on people, not population, highlights the United Nations Population Fund. Reducing people to numbers strips them of their humanity. Instead of making the numbers work for systems, make the systems work for the numbers by promoting the health and well-being of people.

The untold story

Back to the key issue of women and teenagers, UNFPA’s report: Motherhood in Childhood: The Untold Story, features the trends and provides a wide picture of such a shocking problem.

‘World is failing adolescent girls’ warns UNFPA chief, as report shows third of women in developing countries give birth in teen years.

Is this the world that human beings want?

Since the middle of the 20th century, the world has experienced unprecedented population growth. The world’s population more than tripled in size between 1950 and 2020.. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jul 7 2022 (IPS)

Far-right Brazilian president, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, was quoted a year ago or so as saying to a small group of indogenous people that they “now look a bit more like humans.”

Tragically, a vast majority of this year’s record world population of 8 millions is harshly neglected and seen as just disturbing numbers, if ever treated as such humans.

The world’s population has been growing too fast and, with it, the wave of staggering inequalities, human rights abuses and shockingly growing violence.

During the period from 2000 to 2020, even though the global population grew at an average annual rate of 1.2%, 48 countries or areas grew at least twice as fast: these included 33 countries or areas in Africa and 12 in Asia

The facts about such a high speed population growth speak for themselves: for instance, it took hundreds of thousands of years for the world population to grow to 1 billion – then in just another 200 years or so, it grew sevenfold.

According to 2022 World Population Day (July 11), in 2011, the global population reached the 7 billion mark, it stood at almost 7.9 billion in 2021, and it’s expected to grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.9 billion in 2100.

In short: the world’s population more than tripled in size in barely half a century, between 1950 and 2020.

This dramatic growth has been driven largely by increasing numbers of people surviving to reproductive age, and has been accompanied by major changes in fertility rates, increasing urbanisation and accelerating migration, explains the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

These trends will have far-reaching implications for generations to come.

A good number of demographers may marvel at the advancements in health that have extended lifespans, reduced maternal mortality and child mortality and given rise to vaccine development in record time.

Others will tout technological innovations that have eased our lives and connected us more than ever. Still others will herald gains in gender equality, says the UN.

Inequality, discrimination, harassment, violence…

“But progress is not universal, throwing inequality into razor-sharp relief.”

The same concerns and challenges raised 11 years ago remain or have worsened: climate change, violence, discrimination, warns the World Population Day.

“The world reached a particularly grim milestone in May: More than 100 million forcibly displaced worldwide.”

In an ideal world, 8 billion people means 8 billion opportunities for healthier societies empowered by rights and choices.

But the playing field is not and has never been even. Based on gender, ethnicity, class, religion, sexual orientation, disability and origin, among other factors, too many are still exposed to discrimination, harassment and violence, warns the United Nations.

The wider picture

In fact, world’s politicians and media, in particular those of the heavily industrialised countries, have long been ignoring the other side of the coin. See for example:

• The richest 1% pollutes more than the poorest 50%. In fact, the Group of 20 major economies (G20) accounts for 78% of global greenhouse gas emissions.In contrast, in the specific case of Africa –54 countries home to 1.4 billion humans– causes a negligible 2% to 3% of all global greenhouse emissions, however it falls victim to more than 80% of the world’s climate catastrophes;
• Five more planets earth urgently needed if the current depletion of natural resources continues as expected;
• The risk of turning Planet Earth into a giant desert
• At the same time, alongside the causes of climate emergency, such a voracious profit-making business has been also leading to a fast growing land degradation and desertification.

Who is behind the destruction of biodiversity? Obviously, those who have been making voracious profits by exploiting the essential infrastructure of all kinds of life on Earth, through their industrial intensive agriculture, the collection of genetic resources of flora and fauna to register them as their own “property”, the production of genetically modified food, and the over-use of chemicals.

They are also the big timber business destroying forests, inducing the waste of huge amounts of agriculture and livestock products to keep their prices the most profitable possible, and a long, very long etcetera.

Meanwhile, Big business depletes Nature and supplants it with synthetic food. In fact, the fast increasing impact of such depletion, alongside conflicts and climate crises, have pushed millions of humans to flee their homes and migrate.

But in addition to dying in their migration journeys, they also fall easy prey to human trafficking and smuggling. See for example: Slave Markets Open 24/7: Refugee Babies, Boys, Girls, Women, Men…

Simultaneously,nuclear-armed powers continue to squander $156.000 per minute on their MAD Policy

One consequence is that right now there are new world records: more weapons than ever. And a hunger crisis like no other

Fertility rates, life expectancy, urbanisation…

Now back to the issue of population growth. The recent past has seen enormous changes in fertility rates and life expectancy. In the early 1970s, women had on average 4.5 children each; by 2015, total fertility for the world had fallen to below 2.5 children per woman.

Meanwhile, average global life spans have risen, from 64.6 years in the early 1990s to 72.6 years in 2019, according to this year’s World Population Day.

In addition, the world is seeing high levels of urbanisation and accelerating migration. 2007 was the first year in which more people lived in urban areas than in rural areas, and by 2050 about 66% of the world population will be living in cities.”

These megatrends have far-reaching implications. They affect economic development, employment, income distribution, poverty and social protections. They also affect efforts to ensure universal access to health care, education, housing, sanitation, water, food and energy.

More facts and figures

On the occasion of World Population Day, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) reported the following:

• Since the middle of the 20th century, the world has experienced unprecedented population growth. The world’s population more than tripled in size between 1950 and 2020.
• The growth rate of the world’s population reached a peak between 1965 and 1970, when human numbers were increasing by an average of 2.1% per year.
• During the period from 2000 to 2020, even though the global population grew at an average annual rate of 1.2%, 48 countries or areas grew at least twice as fast: these included 33 countries or areas in Africa and 12 in Asia.
• The life span of adults in the developed world has increased since the middle of the 20th century – the number of people reaching the age of 100 years has never been greater than it is today.

Now that you have the two sides of today’s world before your eyes, please always consider the “human” face of the numbers.

GBV Survivor supported by UNFPA Cambodia and the Ministry of Women Affairs and relevant stakeholders to ensure GBV survivors receive the necessary support both physically and emotionally to live free of violence and abuse. Credit: UNFPA Cambodia.

By External Source
PHNOM PENH, Jul 10 2020 (IPS)

Fulfilling women’s and girls’ rights through promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is an essential prerequisite for reaching national development goals as well as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

While many countries have made significant progress in reducing maternal mortality, preventing unwanted pregnancies, stemming the spread of sexually transmitted infections and fostering gender equality, gains in sexual and reproductive health and rights remain vulnerable against a rising tide of conservatism across the globe, compounded by entrenched local traditional harmful practices, and exacerbated by multiple crises such as the current COVID-19 pandemic that threaten to shift the focus away from women’s rights issues and make access to much-needed resources all the more challenging.

Emerging from a history of daunting challenges, Cambodia nonetheless achieved a number of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), making considerable progress in adopting and implementing evidence-based national development policies, and strengthening its human capital. In this, it was guided as well by gender equality to ensure the rights of women including their right to sexual and reproductive health is upheld.

The pandemic is hitting already-marginalized communities particularly hard, deepening inequalities and threatening to set us back in our efforts of leaving no one behind with women and girls to undoubtedly bear the brunt of the crisis

But the considerable gains made could be compromised by crises such as COVID-19 and their socioeconomic fallout.

While COVID-19 has had an equalizing effect in its impact on various strata of society regardless of whether a country is “developed” or “developing”, not everyone is affected equally.

Indeed, the pandemic is hitting already-marginalized communities particularly hard, deepening inequalities and threatening to set us back in our efforts of leaving no one behind with women and girls to undoubtedly bear the brunt of the crisis.

Sophany, a 42-year-old mother of two from Tboung Khmum province in eastern Cambodia, has suffered from domestic violence and abuse from her husband for more than a decade till she escaped and filed for divorce. She is one of many who is feeling the weight of the pandemic.

During COVID-19, she lost her income as a food-seller to garment factory workers given the closure of some factories, and she has found it all the more difficult to raise her children, resulting in her estranged husband taking one of their children. This resulted in further mental suffering and distress, but with the support of her brother and the local authorities she managed to regain a livelihood, and now is willing to volunteer to help other women in a similar situation.

A recent study conducted by UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, estimated that if lockdowns continue for six months with significant disruptions to health and other essential services, some 47 million women in low- and middle-income countries may not be able to access modern contraceptives resulting in seven million unintended pregnancies. The restrictions will also result in 31 million additional cases of gender-based violence during the same period.

The impact of the pandemic is not confined to women’s health in isolation. Women were already disproportionately represented in insecure labor markets that are now harder hit by the economic impacts of COVID-19, resulting in women like Sophany falling back into poverty. Furthermore, women’s unpaid care work has increased as a result of school closures and the increased needs of older people within the family.

The time is now to act and accelerate the promise made for women and girls in 1994 in Cairo at the historic International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).

In Cairo, Cambodia was one of 179 governments that signed on to a far-reaching Programme of Action that transformed our view of population and development – a genuine paradigm shift – by embracing individual rights and choices, including sexual and reproductive health and rights grounded in gender equality, as being at the heart of sustainable development.

Since 1994, Cambodia has been working hard to fulfill the ICPD Programme of Action, making remarkable progress in reducing poverty levels with the percentage of Cambodians living under the national poverty line falling from almost 48% in 2007 to 13.5% in 2014; maternal mortality rates decreasing by around 65% from 2005 to 2014; life expectancy at birth increasing from 58 years in 2000 to 69 years in 2013; and the first-ever National Policy on Gender Equality draft initiated in 2019.

Despite these achievements however, we must collectively work even harder to shore up these gains and ensure they are not rolled back amid the pandemic and its socioeconomic fallout. It is time for us all to realize our ICPD commitments, keep our promises, and build a Cambodia that is better and safer for all including women such as Sophany.

A quarter-century after Cairo, at the Nairobi Summit on the ICPD25 in 2019, we observed thousands of representatives from governments, civil society, multilateral and bilateral institutions, private sector and marginalized communities come together at another historic summit to reaffirm once again the centrality of SRHR to sustainable development, and collectively commit to the Three Zeros to be achieved by 2030: Zero Preventable Maternal Deaths, Zero Unmet Need for Family Planning, and Zero Gender-Based Violence and Harmful Practices.

Population Census reaches remote parts of rural Cambodia, here three-generation family captured. Credit: Mr. Taylor Weidman, UNFPA Cambodia.

For Cambodia that means doubling down on efforts to achieve the unfinished business of the ICPD by 2030, recognizing that without fulfilling the ICPD, we simply cannot fulfill the SDGs. Since our return from Nairobi, the Royal Government of Cambodia has actively undertaken necessary steps to introduce an ICPD25 roadmap and put in place a coordination mechanism to oversee the implementation of the ICPD25 National Commitments delivered at Nairobi.

On the occasion of the World Population Day 2020, celebrated on July 11 each year, with the theme of “Putting the brakes on COVID-19: How to safeguard the health and rights of women and girls now”, we call on all partners and stakeholders to recommit to and prioritize the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls – including safer pregnancy and childbirth, increased access to modern contraception nationwide, and the prevention and management of gender-based violence (which currently affects one in five women in Cambodia).

We cannot do this alone. We need to work together around the clock – both to fight and contain this deadly virus and ensure at the same time that rights and choices for women’s and girls’ health and well-being are protected. We cannot be complacent and we cannot fail. The cost of failure will simply be too high to bear!

While COVID-19 presents numerous challenges, this unprecedented global crisis has also provided new opportunities and impetus to tackling the unfinished business of ICPD with ever-greater urgency. If we are to make progress on the ICPD amid and beyond the pandemic in this Decade of Action towards the 2030 SDGs finish line, we must put women and girls at the very center of development, recognizing that women and girls are ultimately at the heart of Cambodia’s remarkable, transformational journey of growth and change.

H.E. Dr. Ing Khantha Phavi, Minister, Ministry of Women’s Affairs of Cambodia, and Head of the Royal Government of Cambodia Delegation to the Nairobi Summit in 2019.

H.E. Mr. Chea Chantum, Secretary General of the General Secretariat for Population and Development, Ministry of Planning of Cambodia.

Mr. Daniel Alemu, Acting Representative, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Cambodia

Sex workers in India’s Chennai city demonstrate their skills in slipping condoms on a phallus. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
CHENNAI/LONDON, Jul 11 2017 (IPS)

In a semi-lit room of a southern Chennai neighborhood, a group of women sit in a circle around a table surrounded by large cardboard boxes of “Nirodh” – India’s most popular condom.

Clad in colorful saris, wearing toe rings and red dots on their foreheads, they look like ordinary housewives. Slowly, one of the women opens a box, takes out a handful of condoms and a wooden phallus. Sound of laughter fills the air as each woman takes her trurn to slip a condom over the phallus. It’s a rare, happy hour for these women who live a hard life as sex workers – a fact they carefully guard from their families.“In our community, over 90 percent of people survive by begging. How can they ever afford any of these treatments?" --Axom, a 26-year-old transsexual man

Baby, who only goes by the first name, is in her forties and the most experienced of all when it comes to demostrating condom skills. A peer educator, Baby has been teaching fellow sex workers all over the city of Chennai how to practice safe sex and protect themselves from both HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

Thanks to constant training and a generation of awareness, condoms are now part and parcel of almost all of the city’s 6,300 sex workers’ lives, she says. But their sexual health and protection from diseases still completely depend on their clients’ willingness to use a condom.

“We try our best to help the client understand that it is very important to wear a condom because that will keep us both safe from HIV and other infections like gonorrhea. But it needs some convincing. Most of them wear it only grudgingly,“ says Baby.

Female condoms – a mirage

India is one of the largest manufacturers and exporters of condoms in the world. The government-owned Hindustan Latest Limited (HLL) produces over a billion condoms annually, including Nirodh. Of these, 650 million Nirodh condoms are given away annually free of cost for the safe sex campaign. But when it comes to female condoms, there is no free lunch and one must buy the condoms from a store.

AJ Hariharan is the founder and CEO of the Chennai-based Indian Community Welfare Organization (ICWO), one of the largest NGOs in the country working for the welfare of sex workers. Hariharan says that female condoms could be of immense help for the sex workers, but are extremely hard to access because of steep pricing.

A pack of male condom costs around 25 rupees, while a female condom is priced at 59 and above. This is far beyond the reach of most sex workers whose daily earnings are 200-500 rupees, which goes to support their families.

“At the current price, a female condom is an out of reach luxury for poor women. They will never be able to able to use this which is a shame because the average sex workers really need female condoms,” Hariharan adds..

The reason behind the “great need” is both self-empowerment and money, he explains: it takes some time to explain to a client why he must wear a condom and then help him put it on. But this requires time and often, the couple may have to wait before the man has an erection again. With a female condom, business can be done faster as she can save both her time and energy and serve him quick. For those women who rent a place for work, this can be very helpful as she can be with multiple clients in few hours and spend less on rent.

Organizations like ICWO have asked the government for a free supply of female condoms, says Hariharan, but have not received any so far. “This is one of the biggest unmet needs and it must be looked seriously into,” he says.

Despite their inability to afford female condoms, the sex worker community is luckier than other marginalized people of the city as they regularly access sexual and reproductive health services.

“There are eight hospitals in the city where we can go for a regular health check-up that includes having an HIV and STI test and take condoms,” says Vasanthi, a sex worker.

Healthcare for the Transgender

But for another sexual minority – the 450,000 strong transgender community – even a regular health check-up remains a struggle.

“One of the biggest challenges is finding a doctor who can and is willing to understand our problems,” reveals Axom, a 26-year-old transsexual man.

“The moment you walk into a hospital or a private clinic, the doctor will start judging your character and rebuke you for your sexual choice, instead of advising you what to do. It always starts with ‘why do you choose to be this way?’ After this, obviously you will never feel like opening up about your health issues,” Axom says.

Besides the moral policing, transgender community members also face uphill battles to afford healthcare including feminizing and masculinizing hormonal treatment.

Axom has been undergoing hormonal treatment. He hopes to have sex reassignment surgery – a multilayered medical treatment that will give him a prosthetic penis – and is spending over 10,000 dollars on the treatment. Thanks to his job in one of the world‘s biggest e-commerce firms, he can afford it, but for most others, such procedures remain a distant dream.

“In our community, over 90 percent of people survive by begging,” Axom says. “How can they ever afford any of these treatments?“

FP2020, Commitments and Gaps

In 2012, India became a part of the FP2020 – a global partnership to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 5 and ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights by 2030. India had committed among other things to invest two billion dollars over eight years to reduce the unmet need and address “equity so that the poorest and most vulnerable population have more access to quality services and supplies.“

On July 11, representatives from the FP2020 partner countries are participating in a summit in London again to inform and analyse the current status of delivering those commitments made four years ago.

For India, this is a good chance to tell the world what it has really done and recommit to achieve the goals that it had set, says Lester Coutinho, Deputy Director of Family Planning at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Governments, including India, are now responding to the gaps in the commitments that they made. Adolescents and youths are one area, supply chain is another, money for purchasing commodities is the third. Giving counseling and information to women and young people is another. There are tangible solutions in these areas that the government can adopt,” says Coutinho.

Meanwhile, in Chennai, transsexual men and woman like Axom hope that one day the government will subsidize the SRS and hormonal treatment for transgenders.

“The Supreme Court of India recognized the transpeople as a third gender in 2014, so we are now entitled to equal rights and facilities as other citizens do. If the government can offer free surgeries for life-threatening diseases, why can’t we expect it to offer us subsidies on treatments that can remove threats to our identities and the restoration of a normality in our life?” asks Axom.

Two Mexican teenage girls at their school. Investing in education for teenage girls in Latin America is regarded as the way forward for them to become future drivers of sustainable develpment in their societies. Credit: UNFPA LAC

By Estrella Gutiérrez
CARACAS, Jul 11 2016 (IPS)

Latin America’s teenage girls are a crucial force for change and for promoting sustainable development, if the region invests in their rights and the correction of unequal opportunities, according to Luiza Carvalho, the regional head of UN Women.

“An empowered adolescent will know her rights and will stand up for them; she has tools for success and is a driving froce for positive change in her community,” Carvalho told IPS in an interview from the regional headquarters of UN Women in Panama City.

Adolescent girls and boys will have a leading role in their societies when the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development has been completed, she said. One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is gender equality. Investing in today’s girls will have “a great transformative impact in future,” she said. “Investing in education and protection against violence are important tools for fulfilling the potential of teenage girls and young women,as wellas for promoting gender equality” -- Luiza Carvalho.

The world today has a higher proportion of its population aged between 10 and 24 years old than ever before, with 1.8 billion young people out of a  total population of 7.3 billion. Roughly 20 percent of this age group live in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean, Carvalho said.

According to data given to IPS by the regional office of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), 57million of the region’s 634 million people are girls aged between 10 and 19, living mainly in cities.

The theme for this year’s World Population Day, celebrated July 11, is “Investing in Teenage Girls”, on the premise that transforming their present situation to guarantee their right to equality will not only eliminate barriers to their individual potential but will also be decisive for the sustainable development of their countries.

Women Deliver, an international organisation, has calculated the benefits of this investment in financial terms. For every additional 10 percent of girls in school, national GDP rises by an average of three percent; for every extra year of primary schooling a girl has completed, her expected salary as an adult grows by between 10 and 20 percent.

This is fundamental because, as Carvalho pointed out, “lack of economic empowerment, together with generalised gender discrimination and the reinforcemet of traditional stereotypes, negatively affects the capability of women in Latin America and the Caribbean to participate on an equal footing in all aspects of public and private life.”

Luiza Carvalho, regional director of UN Women for Latin America and the Caribbean. Credit: UN Women LAC

That is why “investing in education and protection against violence are important tools for fulfilling the potential of teenage girls and young women,as well as for promoting gender equality,” she said.

Teenage women, she said, “are an especially vulnerable group who face special social, economic and political barriers.” Their empowerment in the region may come up against difficulties such as unwanted pregnancy, forced early marriage or union, gender violence and limited access to education and reproductive health services.”

As an example of these obstacles, the regional director of UN Women said that a Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) study of women aged 15-49 years in 12 countries of the region “reported that for a substantial proportion of these women, their first sexual encounter had been unwanted or coerced.”

Carvalho stressed that “early marriage or union imposed on girls is a major concern in the region, and it significantly affects the exercise of adolescent girls’ rights developing their full potential.”

“It is a form of violence that denies them their childhood, interrupts their education, limits their social development, curtails their opportunities, exposes them to the risk of premature pregnancy at too young an age, or unwanted pregnancy and its possible complications, and increases their risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, including HIV (human immuno-deficiency virus),” she said.

It also increases the girls’ exposure to “becoming victims of violence and abuse,” Carvalho said.

In Carvalho’s view it is very positive that all the countries inthe region have established minimum ages for marriage in their laws, but on the other hand, the laws fix different minimum ages for boys and for girls, and in certain cases such as pregnancy or motherhood, girls may legally marry before they reach the minimum age.

In Latin America, far from diminishing, teenage pregnancies have increased in recent years, due to cultural acceptance of early sexual initiation. As a result, the region ranks second in the world for adolescent birth rates, with an average of 76 live births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years, second only to sub-Saharan Africa.

Furthermore, 30 percent of Latin American teenage girls do not have access to the contraceptive care services they need, according to UNFPA. Sexual and reproductive health face especially high barriers in this region because of patriarchal,culture, the weight of conservative sectors and the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church.

In Latin America, indigenous teenage girls, together with their rural counterparts, are the group most discriminated against in terms of opportunities and access to education. Credit: Rajesh Krishnan/UN Women

In contrast, the region has a good record on education. Over 90 percent of its countries have policies to promote equal access by teenagers to education. Ninety percent of teenage girls have finished their primary school education, although only 78 percent go on to secondary school, according to UNFPA.

The greatest educational access barriers are faced by rural and indigenous teenage girls, who have difficulties for physical access to some education centres. In the case of indigenous and Afro-descendant girls, this is added to inappropriate curricula or the absence of educational materials in their native languages (mother tongues). 

Carvalho highlighted as a positive element that education laws, especially those that have been reformed recently, “have begun to recognise the importance of establishing legal provisions that promote and disseminate human rights, peaceful coexistence and sex education.”

However, she regretted that “direct connections with prevention of violence against women and girls are still incipient.”

In her view, the school curriculum plays an essential role. Including contents and materials “related to human rights and the rights of women and girls, non-violent conflict resolution, co-responsibility and basic education about sexual and reproductive health,” will potentiate more non-violent societies, inside and outside of the classroom, she said.

Carvalho quoted a 2015 study carried out in 13 Latin American countries by UN Women and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which concluded that education systems are failing to prevent violence against girls.

“This is something that must be improved, because it is in the first few years of early childhood that egalitarian role modelling between girls and boys can occur and lay the foundations of the prevention of violence, discrimination, and inequality in all its forms,” she emphasised.

Carvalho said changes should start with something as simple as it is frequently forgotten: “Girls, teenagers and women are rights-holders and entitled to their rights.”

If girls are given “equal access to education, health care, sexual and reproductive education, decent jobs, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes, sustainable economies would be promoted and societies, and humanity as a whole, would benefit,” she concluded. 

Edited by Verónica Firme. Translated by Valerie Dee.

A teenage mother and her toddler in Bonpland, a rural municipality in the northern province of Misiones in Argentina. Latin America has the second highest regional rate of early pregnancies in the world, after sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Fabiana Frayssinet
BUENOS AIRES, Jul 8 2016 (IPS)

In plain and simple language, an Argentine video aimed at teenagers explains how to get sexual pleasure while being careful. Its freedom from taboos is very necessary in Latin American countries where one in five girls becomes a mother by the time she is 19 years old.

“For good sex to happen, both partners have to want it and this is as much about being sure they want it, as about being in the mood or ‘hot’ with desire,” said psychologist Cecilia Saia who made the video “Let’s talk About Sex” (Hablemos de sexo), aimed at adolescents and preadolescents and posted on social networks.

The video was produced by Fundación para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer (FEIM – Foundation for Women’s Studies and Research) as part of a Take the Non-Pregnancy Test campaign. It was also distributed to teenagers so they “would be able to take free and informed decisions about becoming mothers and fathers.” “Keeping children in the education system or bringing them back into it would be effective interventions to prevent teenage pregnancy. In the same way, creating conditions within the education system to ensure that pregnant teenagers or adolescent mothers can continue their education, would be another intervention with a positive impact” - Alma Virginia Camacho-Hübner.

During the campaign, teenagers of both sexes were given boxes similar in appearance to pregnancy test kits, containing information about teenage pregnancy and the myths surrounding how it is caused, as well as condoms and instructions on how to use them, Mabel Bianco, the president of FEIM, told IPS.

The campaign was broadcast on YouTube and other social networks, with candid messages in the language used by adolescents. “This meant we could reach a large numbers of 14-to-18-year-olds, an age group that such campaigns usually find hard to reach,” she said.

According to FEIM, in Argentina 300 babies a day, or 15 percent of the total, are born to mothers aged under 19.

“This percentage has shown a sustained increase over the last 10 to 15 years, and the proportion of births to girls under 15 years of age has also risen,” Bianco said.

Argentina exemplifies what is happening in the rest of Latin America, which is the world region with the second highest teenage fertility rate, after sub-Saharan Africa. The national rate in Argentina is 76 live births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years, according to United Nations’ demographic statistics.

In order to call attention to this problem and to the general need to promote the equal development of women, Investing in Teenage Girls is the theme of this year’s World Population Day, to be celebrated July 11.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) states that one in five women in the Southern Cone of South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) will become a teenage mother, in an area where over 1.2 million babies a year are born to adolescents.

“Early pregnancy and motherhood can bring about health complications for mother and baby, as well as negative impacts over the course of the lives of adolescents,” says a UNFPA report about fertility and teenage motherhood in the Southern Cone.

The report says that “when pregnancy is unplanned, it is a clear indication of the infringement of teenagers’ sexual and reproductive rights and hence of their human rights.”

Alma Virginia Camacho-Hübner, UNFPA sexual and reproductive health adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean, told IPS that teenage pregnancy has implications for individual patients, such as maternal morbidity and mortality associated with the risks involved with unsafe abortions, among other factors.

Prematurity rates and low birthweights are also several-fold higher, especially among mothers younger than 15.

For health services, the costs of prenatal care, childbirth, postnatal care and care of the newborn are far higher than the cost of interventions to prevent pregnancy and promote health education.

“For society as a whole, from a strictly economic point of view, in countries that enjoy a demographic dividend, early motherhood represents an accelerated loss of that demographic dividend,” Camacho-Hübner said from the UNFPA regional headquarters in Panama City.

This is because “instead of increasing economic productivity by having a larger economically active proportion of the population, a rise in early motherhood causes a rapid rise in the dependency ratio, that is the proportion of the population that is not economically active and requires support from family or society,”she said.

The Southern Cone study found that dropping out of school usually preceded getting pregnant.

“Therefore, keeping children in the education system or bringing them back into it would be effective interventions to prevent teenage pregnancy. In the same way, creating conditions within the education system to ensure that pregnant teenagers or adolescent mothers can continue their education, would be another intervention with a positive impact,” Camacho-Hübner said.

In her view, teen pregnancy and motherhood are an issue of inequality which mainly affects women in lower socio-economic strata.

“It is teenagers from the poorest families and with the least education, living in underprivileged geographical regions, that are most prone to becoming adolescent mothers,” she said.

“Becoming mothers at an early age reinforces conditioning and the inequalities in the process by which teenagers who are, and who are not, mothers, effect the transition into adulthood,” she said.

“The main consequence of pregnancy is the interruption of schooling, although in many cases they have already dropped out by the time they become pregnant. But they do not go back to school afterwards because they have to look after the baby,” Bianco said.

“This makes for a poorer future, as these girls will have access to lower-paid jobs and will be able to contribute less to the country’s development. On the personal level, they will have to postpone their adolescence, they cannot go out with friends, go dancing and other typical teen activities,” she said.

Federico Tobar, another UNFPA regional adviser, said that “in addition to strengthening health, education and social services, there must be investment to promote demand, with interventions to motivate young people to build a sustained life project.”

“This involves incorporating economic incentives as well as symbolic remuneration, and also concrete childcare support for teenage mothers so that they can finish school and avoid repeated childbearing, which is frequently seen in these countries,” he told IPS.

Among other positive experiences, Tobar mentioned the Uruguayan initiative “Jóvenes en red” (Young People’s Network) which includes returning to school and work, and promotion of sexual and reproductive health.

“I believe it is important to invest in the education of teenage women, including comprehensive sex education and the capacity to decide whether or not they wish to have children. It is not a question of eliminating all pregnancy in adolescence, but of making it a conscious choice rather than an accident,” Bianco said. 

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez. Translated by Valerie Dee.

Melody Kemp/IPS

By Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 2016 (IPS)

From forced sterilisation to sexual abuse, young women and men with disabilities are much more likely to have their sexual and reproductive health rights violated than other people.

However despite the increased risks they face, young people with disabilities are also much less likely to get the sexual health education that they need.

Sometimes this is because well-meaning caregivers fail to realise the sexual desires and needs of people with disabilities, Malin Kvitvaer who works for the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU) told IPS.

“They see only the deafness and forget that there is a young person there too,” said Kvitvaer who works on a special project aimed at improving sexual education in sign language and is herself deaf.

Parents and caregivers can forget that young people with disabilities also have questions about their bodies and thinks about sex, just like any other teenager, said Kvitvaer.

Even where young people with disabilities do have access to sexual health education, it can be incomplete or inadequate due to access barriers, Kvitvaer added.

“There are many instances where the teacher, not being fluent in sign language, does not know how to teach sexuality education in sign language and either teaches a very compromised version, or skips it altogether,” she said.

Communication barriers can have an even greater impact, when abusers take advantage of the fact that it is harder for young Deaf people to report abuse.

“In the history of the Deaf community there is a history of young Deaf girls – boys too, but mostly girls – who were subjected to sexual abuse by the adult men around them, such as teachers, Deaf priests and so on.”

“Many times they also knew that the girls’ families did not speak Sign language and so they wouldn’t be able to tell (their families) about the abuse,” said Kvitvaer who was also the Swedish youth delegate to the United Nations in 2011.

We Decide, a new initiative launched last month by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) aims to address the gaps in sexual and reproductive health services, education and information which disproportionately effect young people with disabilities.

Leyla Sharafi. Gender and youth specialist at UNFPA told IPS that adolescents and youth around the world struggle to access appropriate sexual and reproductive health services and that for young people with disabilities the barriers are even greater.

“Young people with disabilities are at higher risk of experiencing sexual violence and face greater barriers when accessing sexual and reproductive health services and education,” Sharafi told IPS.

“UNFPA and the We Decide program is advocating that all young people with disabilities enjoy their human rights, including living a life free of violence and discrimination.”

Sharafi added that the program was designed in collaboration with young people with disabilities, taking into consideration their wants and needs.

To this end, Kvitvaer notes that sexual education should not just focus on the negative aspects of sex, but also the positive aspects.

“I also think it is important to not only focus on problems that sex can cause – such as unwanted pregnancies, STDs, but also that sex is a good thing when consensual and that is just as ok to want to have sex, as it is to not want to have sex.”

This week marks the 10-year anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) which Sharafi notes “is one of the only conventions that explicitly talks about access to sexual and reproductive health.”

A group of young Somali girls at the Ifo 2 Refugee Camp in Dadaab, Kenya, which is supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 8 2015 (IPS)

On the eve of World Population Day, the United Nations is fighting a virtually losing battle against growing humanitarian emergencies triggered mostly by military conflicts that are displacing people by the millions – and rendering them either homeless or reducing them to the status of refugees.

The number of forcibly displaced people has risen to a record number – almost 60 million at the end of 2014, according to the latest U.N. figures.“Governments and electorates are increasingly loath to accept large numbers of people who are in great need, ethnically different and may pose threats to social stability.” -- Joseph Chamie

But that number will continue to rise through 2015 – judging by the unprecedented number of refugees fleeing their home countries, and mostly crossing the Mediterranean Sea, seeking safe havens in European countries.

“Among these, most women and adolescent girls face particular threats as a result of the absence of health and other essential services that they need,” says U.N. Under-Secretary-General Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

“The complex emergencies we are responding to include protracted conflicts, made worse by poor or failed governance, the consequences of climate change, and the engagement of extremist groups claiming territory, resources and power,” he points out.

The theme of this year’s World Population Day – “Vulnerable Populations in Emergencies” – is aimed at highlighting the special needs of women and adolescent girls during conflicts and humanitarian disasters.

According to the United Nations, the number of people requiring critical relief has more than doubled since 2004, to over 100 million today, over and above the 60 million displaced people.

Current funding requirements for 2015 stand at a staggering 19.1 billion dollars compared with 3.4 billion dollars in 2004.

Joseph Chamie, former director of the United Nations Population Division, told IPS the focus of the 2015 World Population Day, which will be commemorated on July 11, is both timely and appropriate given that a record number of more than 60 million men, women and children have been displaced from their homes.

Although the current number of people displaced is at a record high, it will likely increase to substantially higher levels in the coming years as the political unrest and civil conflicts remain unresolved and become more widespread, he noted.

“The forced displacement of millions of men, women and children has created a humanitarian crisis that is challenging countries in every region of the world.”

Chamie said the many services needed by the vulnerable people, including food, shelter, clothing, health care, schooling and safety, are overwhelming the capacities of governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Unfortunately, the international community has not been able to agree on a comprehensive solution to the crisis, he pointed out.

“Governments and electorates are increasingly loath to accept large numbers of people who are in great need, ethnically different and may pose threats to social stability.”

Chamie said economic uncertainties, record government deficits, high unemployment and concerns about national and cultural identity are contributing to growing anti-immigrant sentiment.

According to a report by the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) released last week, the large majority of the 137,000 people who crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Europe during the first half of this year were fleeing from war, conflict or persecution, making the Mediterranean crisis primarily a refugee one.

The report said one third of people arriving in Italy or Greece were from Syria, whose nationals are almost universally deemed to qualify for refugee status or other forms of protection.

The second and third most common countries of origin are Afghanistan and Eritrea, whose nationals are also mostly considered to qualify for refugee status.

There was an 83 per cent increase in refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean from January to June — 137,000 compared to 75,000 in the same period last year, according to UNHCR.

The number of deaths at sea rose to record levels in April of this year, when more than 1,300 people drowned or went missing in a single month, compared to 42 last April.

In a statement released here, UNFPA said women and adolescent girls who are caught up in humanitarian emergencies also face much greater risk of abuse, sexual exploitation, violence and forced marriage during conflicts and natural disasters.

In addition, many women who survive a crisis become heads of household, with the sole responsibility of caring for their children.

They often have to overcome immense obstacles to provide health and care for children, the sick, the injured and the elderly, and bear the heaviest burden of relief and reconstruction. As a result, they may neglect their own needs as they care for others, UNFPA said.

One of the priorities of UNFPA is to empower and safeguard the well-being of women, adolescent girls, and young people and address their specific needs and concerns.

“We work closely with governments, the United Nations system, local partners and others on disaster preparedness to ensure that reproductive health is integrated into emergency responses.”

“On this World Population Day, we call on the international community to redouble efforts to protect the health and rights of women and girls”, the agency said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Most South Asian nations struggle with the twin problems of early marriage and teenage pregnancy, making it crucial to tackle both simultaneously, experts say. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 11 2014 (IPS)

If 22-year-old Rashda Naureen could go back six years in time, she would never have agreed to get married at the tender age of 16.

“Looking back, I know I was not ready for marriage,” she told IPS. “How could I have been, being merely a child myself?”

With only a third-grade education, Naureen became a mother at 17 and got a divorce soon after she delivered.

According to Naureen’s mother, Perween Bibi, who works for a small daily wage as a cleaning woman in Pakistan, “I have two more daughters [in addition to two sons] and we gave Rashda away in order to have one less responsibility on our hands.”

Nearly 7.3 million teenage girls become pregnant every year -- of these, two million are aged 14 or younger.
But the opposite turned out to be true. Today Bibi and her husband, who is a private chauffeur, must now find a way to provide for their grandson in a family of seven struggling to survive.

Perhaps the most unfortunate part of the story is that Naureen’s pregnancy could easily have been avoided.

“Before marriage my best friend urged me to take contraceptive pills, but I refused to listen to her,” Naureen confessed.

“Even my husband, who had been forced to marry me by his parents, said we should wait, but I didn’t pay any heed; I thought having a child immediately would cement our relationship, and my husband would begin to love me,” she said forlornly.

Dr. Tauseef Ahmed, Pakistan country director of Pathfinder International, a non-profit organisation working to improve adolescent and youth access to sexual and reproductive health services in more than 30 countries, says that early pregnancy is not uncommon among teenage brides.

In fact, having a baby is a way of proving one’s fertility, and the values of adolescent pregnancy are “protected by women and girls themselves,” he told IPS.

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), nearly 7.3 million teenage girls become pregnant every year — of these, two million are aged 14 or younger. Meanwhile, an estimated 70,000 adolescents in developing countries die each year from complications during pregnancy and childbirth.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says stillbirths and newborn deaths are 50 percent more likely among infants of adolescent mothers than among mothers aged 20 to 29.

Infants who survive are more likely to have a low birth weight and be premature than those born to women in their 20s.

The problem is particularly pronounced in Pakistan, a country of 180 million people where 35 percent of married women between the ages of 25 and 49 years were wed before the age of 18, according to the latest figures in the 2012-2013 Pakistan Demographic Health Survey.

Experts say one of the main reasons behind the widespread occurrence of chid marriages and early pregnancies is a lack of education.

Naureen agrees, saying her disrupted education stands out as a glaring “missing link” in her early development

Dr. Farid Midhet, who heads the USAID’s flagship Maternal and Child Health Integrated Programme (MCHIP) in Pakistan, says there is a strong link between teenage pregnancy and female illiteracy.

“Together these contribute to high infant and child mortality and morbidity, high fertility, illiteracy in general, and production of children who are a burden on society,” he told IPS.

He added that this exacerbates poverty, which in turn fuels a vicious cycle of militancy, crime and social unrest.

Pathfinder International’s Ahmed believes a strong conservative current in Pakistani society – where 97 percent of the population identifies as Muslim – also conspires against the girl child, making early marriage and adolescent pregnancy a foregone conclusion for thousands of girls.

“Early marriage and not getting permission to attend school are the two main indicators of conservative forces here,” he stressed, adding that the “fear of backlash from conservative forces” has resulted in a glaring lack of positive initiatives within the public sector to tackle the problem.

This, despite the fact that study after study has shown that countries that improve school enrollment rates for girls also see a decline in adolescent child-bearing.

Asked how to tackle the health crisis caused by teenage motherhood, Zeba Sathar, country director of the Population Council of Pakistan, answered immediately that she would first and foremost invest in girls’ education.

“Globally proven strategies include keeping adolescent girls in schools, using economic incentives and livelihood programmes, offering life skills, informing families and communities about the adverse effects of adolescent pregnancy, and mobilising them to support girls to grow and develop into women before becoming mothers,” Sathar told IPS.

A regional problem

The phenomenon is not exclusive to Pakistan, with several other countries in the region experiencing equally challenging situations.

Most South Asian nations, like Pakistan, struggle with the twin problems of early marriage and teenage pregnancy, making it crucial to tackle both simultaneously, experts say.

But this is easier said than done, as laws surrounding the ‘official’ marriage age are difficult to enforce and complicated by traditional societal values.

According to a 2013 report by the UNFPA entitled ‘Motherhood in Childhood’, India and Bangladesh remain among the countries where a girl is most likely to be married before she is 18.

Pakistan and Sri Lanka, on the other hand, show much lower rates of pregnancies among women aged 15 to 19.

The U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA)’s World Population Prospects report states that the adolescent fertility rate among women in the 15-19 age group is 87 per 1,000 women in Afghanistan, 81 in Bangladesh, 74 in Nepal, 33 in India, 27 in Pakistan, and just 17 in Sri Lanka.

India’s eastern state of Bihar had the worst score card for child marriage. Referring to a survey of more than 600,000 households conducted for India’s health ministry between 2007 and 2008, Sathar said nearly 70 percent of women in their early twenties reported having been married by the age of 18.

Bangladesh does not fare any better. One in 10 teens has had a child by the age of 15, while one in three girls gets married by the age of 15.

But numbers, according to Ahmed, do not tell the whole story.

“Early childhood marriages and fertility rates may be four times higher in Bangladesh than in Pakistan, but the former experiences higher aspirations [among women] for better education and gainful employment than Pakistan,” he stated.

Bangladesh’s Population Reference Bureau’s 2013 Data Sheet on Youth states the female labour force participation in Bangladesh is 51 percent, compared to just 20 percent in Pakistan.

Additionally, the percentage of women in secondary education in Bangladesh was 55, while in Pakistan it was just 29.

For women like Naureen, staying in school could have spared her a lifetime of pain.

“I would not have been married and become a mother at such a young age; I would have had time to think about what I was getting myself into… I would have been just a little bit wiser,” she said.

Excerpt:

Ángel and Guadalupe Villalobos work near the University of Costa Rica in San José. He is a hairdresser at a beauty salon and she distributes fruit for a small business run by this brother and sister. Credit: Diego Arguedas Ortiz/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Jul 10 2014 (IPS)

In Latin America, young people are the main link in the chain of poverty leading from one generation to the next. Civil society groups, academics and young people themselves say it is imperative to strengthen the connection between education today and decent employment tomorrow.

“The region’s youth is a subject in its own right, with great symbolic power. It is probably the age group that generates the richest range of identities and cultural expressions,” Martin Hopenhayn, head of the social development division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), told IPS.“We have a great responsibility, because we are the future of this country." -- María Fernanda Tejada

One in four Latin Americans is aged between 15 and 29, according to the Santiago-based ECLAC. This makes it a young continent, “but not for long,” Hopenhayn said.

The population aged 0-15 has fallen markedly in the region, so in 20 years’ time it will have an ageing society.

“That’s why it is very important to invest now in young people, because in 20 years’ time we are going to need the non-aged population to be much more productive,” Hopenhayn said.

But investment in youth is relatively low in Latin America, especially when public and private investment in post-secondary education is compared with emerging countries in southeast Asia, or with European countries.

“Young people are the main link in the intergenerational transmission of poverty,” Hopenhayn said. This transmission will determine whether young people currently becoming economically independent will re-experience “the income poverty and job insecurity of previous generations, that is, of their parents,” he said.

The key mechanism to interrupt this intergenerational transmission is to improve the connection between education today and employment tomorrow, he said.

“We must reduce the gap in educational attainments between poor and non-poor young people,” by focusing investment on education for lower-income sectors, he said.

According to ECLAC figures, only 28 percent of young people aged 20-24 from the poorest 20 percent of the population have completed their secondary education; while among the richest 20 percent, about 80 percent have completed secondary education.

“At present, completing secondary education is the minimum requirement for a young person moving into the world of work and a lifelong career to have real expectations of achieving well-being and social mobility, and overcoming poverty,” Hopenhayn said.

Ángel and Guadalupe Villalobos, a brother and sister who have set up a small fruit distribution business of their own near the University of Costa Rica, in San José, are well aware of this fact.

Ángel, 21, finished his studies as a hairdresser in December 2013 and began working in January 2014. When his 22-year-old sister and her partner separated, the brother and sister started to distribute fruit in local beauty salons.

“Perhaps the main barrier is that if you are experienced and older, it is difficult to get a job, and if you are young, in spite of all your energy, it’s also difficult, but here (in the salon) they have offered me good opportunities,” Ángel told IPS.

Neither of them has started university and Guadalupe has not finished secondary school. In Costa Rica, with its 4.8 million people, 22 percent of young people work in the informal economy, which Ángel and Guadalupe intend to leave.

In Mexico, 37 million people are aged 15-29, out of a total population of 118 million. Nearly 26 percent of this age group are neither studying nor working, and almost 45 percent of them live in poverty.

“I am worried about the lack of opportunities and the prospect of unemployment,” 18-year-old María Fernanda Tejada told IPS. In August she will start studying internatioal relations at the Autonomous University of Mexico, in the capital city.

“We have a great responsibility, because we are the future of this country,” added Tejada, who is the eldest of four children.

In Santiago, 19-year-old Daniel Hurtado is studying medicine, in spite of the social expectation that he would probably work “in a call centre, or as a supermarket packer, in construction or as a waiter,” his father Hugo, himself a waiter, told IPS.

A wage earner in Chile, which has a population of 17.6 million, earns an average of 500 dollars a month, and generally has no chance to send children to university, where medical studies cost between 900 and 1,200 dollars a month. “It’s a gruelling effort,” said the father. “But we are breaking through the barrier,” said the son.

In Hopenhayn’s view, intervening in education is the best means to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, because it is a mass phenomenon that is socially recognised, and has a major impact on the world of work.

According to a study by ECLAC and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), nearly one-third of young people in Latin America and the Caribbean live in poverty, which contravenes their human rights, enshrined in international treaties.

The study, published in 2012, says that the poverty and extreme poverty rates among young people aged 15-29 in the region are 30.3 percent and 10.1 percent, respectively. Together with under-15s, this group is the most vulnerable to poverty in the region.

Employment opportunities are limited for young people, who have an unemployment rate of 15 percent, while for those aged over 30, unemployment is only six percent.

Another factor is the high rate of informal employment in the region, which particularly affects young people.

“For instance, in Chile between 45 and 50 percent of workers are in informal employment, but in the 15-29 age group, 60 percent are informal workers,” sociologist Lucas Cifuentes, a researcher with the Work, Employment, Equity and Health programme at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), told IPS.

He said, “undoubtedly employment is the lynchpin of social development,” and added that “it is impossible to overcome poverty without decent, dignified and protected work.”

In Hopenhayn’s view, recent years have brought about major institutional progress in youth policies, moderate progress in terms of investment in young people, and insufficient progress in investment in young people’s education.

While waiting for that to materialise, Latin American societies continue to seek their own alternative solutions to problems like inequality, and young people demand – in some countries, on the streets – investment to break the transmission of inequality in their generation.

With additional reporting from Emilio Godoy in Mexico City, and Diego Arguedas in San José.

Excerpt:

Girls attend school in South Africa. Healthy, educated young people can help break the cycle of poverty. Credit: UNFPA

By Adebayo Fayoyin
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 10 2014 (IPS)

An African proverb says “a child that we refuse to build today will end up selling the house that we may build tomorrow.”

The moral of this is clear. Unless we invest in our children and young people today, they might become a threat or a burden in the future.As the international community commemorates World Population Day on July 11, Africa’s growing youth population should be recognised as a ‘powerful force for change’ that requires greater investment today.

Judging by the current challenges confronting young people, the extent to which African countries are investing in the youth is unclear.

More young people

According to the Africa Regional Review for the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) the continent is experiencing substantial demographic shifts, which have seen about 21 million persons a year being added to the population since 1994.

Africa has the youngest population and will remain so for decades in a rapidly ageing world. By 2050 “the median age for Africa will increase to 25, while the average for the world as a whole will climb to about 38”.

The fertility rate on the continent is decreasing gradually and the new generation of young people will probably have fewer children than their parents. This demographic shift will also mean fewer elderly people and children to support than previous generations.

Undoubtedly, demography will greatly shape Africa’s position in the global markets for labour, trade and capital.

The phenomenon is what economists call a ‘demographic dividend’, which they argue is a one-time window of opportunity to create wealth and economic growth.

The future they want

But failure to invest in this demographic also comes with its own challenges.

Maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS are the two main causes of death among young women aged 15 to 24 years in sub-Saharan Africa.

Nearly everywhere, adolescents are inhibited from freely exercising their right to, for example, comprehensive sexuality education, contraceptives and sexual and reproductive health services.

Young men in South Sudan stand up for women’s rights. Credit: UNFPA

In many African counties, more than 40 per cent of young women aged 20 to 24 were married by age 18. Also in the countries with high child marriage rates – Niger, Mali, CAR, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Madagascar, Uganda, Senegal, Malawi, Cameroon and Libya – many girls are married off by age 15.

That is why investment in Africa’s youthful population from multiple angles, and primarily from the public and private sectors, is essential for realising the demographic dividend.

“Healthy, productive and fully engaged”

In his message for the World Population Day commemoration, UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehim says “we know that healthy, educated, productive and fully engaged young people can help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and are more resilient in the face of individual and societal challenges”

Africa’s largely youthful population makes up the next generation of workers, parents, and leaders and their challenges can no longer be ignored. Getting the best from the increased youth bulge in Africa can only be assured when appropriate health and development plans, policies and programmes are put in place and adequately implemented.

Adebayo Fayoyin is the Regional Communications Advisor for the UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office.

Excerpt:

Pacific Island nations say empowering women is the key to addressing population growth across the region. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
PORT VILA, Jul 10 2014 (IPS)

Populations of many Melanesian countries in the southwest Pacific Islands region are expected to double in a generation, threatening regional and national efforts to improve low economic and human development indicators.

Arnold Bani, executive director of the Vanuatu Family Health Association in the capital, Port Vila, believes that if reproductive health issues are not addressed in the next 10-15 years the result “will be a disaster for the country.”

Vanuatu, an archipelago of 82 islands located west of Fiji, has a population of 247,262 growing at 2.4 percent, compared to a global average of 1.1 percent. Similarly, the growth rate of Papua New Guinea’s population of seven million is 2.1 percent, as it is in the neighbouring Solomon Islands, home to 550,000 people.

“Mostly the extended family provides people’s basic needs and care...So if a woman makes a decision about family planning alone there will be a fight in the family.” -- Helen, a resident of Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila
As the international community prepares to mark World Population Day on Jul. 11, experts here say an important factor will be empowering women in decisions about family planning and, with a high rate of teenage pregnancies in the region, bringing about behaviour changes in the younger generation.

The task is not easy, given strong cultural and social pressures to have large families.

“Mostly the extended family provides people’s basic needs and care,” Helen (not her real name), a mother in Port Vila, where the contraceptive prevalence is 38 percent, told IPS.

“So if a woman makes a decision about family planning alone there will be a fight in the family.”

There are practical reasons for having numerous children, explained Alec Ekeroma, president of the Pacific Society for Reproductive Health in Auckland, New Zealand.

“Large families are akin to an insurance policy for family survival,” he told IPS. “More children will assist with rural subsistence livelihoods, more children means some will survive past infancy, while care for parents is seen as a duty of the children, especially in countries where there are no social services.”

But Helen said that providing for the needs of large families is a struggle in a country where the average monthly income is around 300 dollars.

The nation’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has decreased since the 1960s from seven to four, while in Papua New Guinea it is 3.8 and in the Solomon Islands 4.1, in contrast to a TFR of 2.1, which indicates a stable population.

Regional experts believe that contraceptive use, which ranges from 35 percent in Papua New Guinea to 22 percent in Kiribati, well below the global average for less developed countries of 56 percent, must be improved.

A report published by Reproductive Health journal last year claims that increasing contraceptive prevalence in Vanuatu to 65 percent by 2025 would create a sustainable population, reduce high risk births by 54 percent, adolescent births by 46 percent and the average number of unintended pregnancies by 68 percent from 76 to 12 per 1,000 women.

Greater contraceptive use and smaller families could also save women’s lives. There are an estimated 110 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in Vanuatu, increasing to 120 in Tonga, 130 in Kiribati and an estimated 733 in Papua New Guinea.

But delivering reproductive health services to predominantly widely scattered rural island populations is a challenge given the limited infrastructure, transport services and skilled health care workers in provincial areas.

Low education and the influence of traditional health healers in rural communities are also factors,Rufina Latu of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Vanuatu added. Even when family planning is available, use can be inhibited by misconceptions, such as fear of side effects or fertility decline, religious opposition and illiteracy. A survey by the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) in Vanuatu’s main Shefa province estimates literacy is as low as 27 percent.

Leias Cullwick, executive director of the Vanuatu National Council of Women, said that a major concern for women is gender inequality and the norm of husbands determining the size of families. Fear of widely prevalent gender violence also impacts women’s behaviour.

“Health services data indicate that many women prefer contraception with long-acting depo-provera injections, so that their husbands would not know,” Latu added, claiming that it is not uncommon for husbands to hold the myth that their wives are having affairs if they are using contraception.

Gender inequality is also a factor in Vanuatu’s high adolescent fertility with 66 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years. Across the Pacific Islands, one quarter of girls in this age group enter motherhood.

The Vanuatu Ministry of Health confirmed there were national strategies to improve services to adolescents. An estimated one third of urban youth lack basic knowledge about reproductive health and many are reluctant to access reproductive health services, leading to high-risk behaviour.

Engaging young people is an urgent priority given the negative impacts of pregnancies on young girls’ lives, such as low educational attainment, poverty and maternal mortality. The risk of death for mothers aged below 15 years in low and middle-income countries is double that of more mature women, reports the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Efforts to increase understanding of population issues must include the whole community, Bani advocated, with chiefs and community leaders better informed about family planning to play a role in wider social acceptance.

Latu emphasised that population and reproductive health education for everyone needs to start in early childhood and “family life education should become a compulsory part of school curriculums at all levels.”

“A more enabling environment for women’s empowerment to develop can be better achieved if men and spouses are also engaged” in the task of social change, she added.

Cullwick suggested that male nurses in Vanuatu be trained in male-to-male advocacy about gender equality and family planning.

“With the high rate of illiteracy you cannot print and distribute leaflets, you need a man to talk to others, to generate a dialogue and make them understand what women go through,” she explained.

(END)

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Teen mothers give birth to 81 out of every 1,000 children in Nepal. Credit: Mallika Aryal/IPS

By Mallika Aryal
CHAMPI, Nepal, Jul 11 2013 (IPS)

Radhika Thapa was just 16 years old when she married a 21-year-old boy three years ago. Now, she is expecting a baby and is well into the last months of her pregnancy. This is not the first time she has been with child – her first two pregnancies ended in miscarriages.

“The first time I conceived I was just 16, I didn’t know much about having babies, nobody told me what to do,” Thapa tells IPS in between assisting customers at the vegetable store she runs with her husband in the small town of Champi, some 12 km from Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

"When girls get pregnant their education stops, which means a lack of employment opportunities and poverty." -- Bhogedra Raj Dotel
“The second time I wasn’t ready either, but my husband wanted a baby so I gave in,” she admitted.

After the second miscarriage, Thapa’s doctors urged her to wait a few years before trying again, but she was under immense pressure from her in-laws, who threatened to “find another woman for her husband if she kept losing her babies”.

What might seem like a horror story to some has become an accepted state of affairs in Nepal, the country with the highest child marriage rate in the world.

On average, two out of five girls are married before their 18^th birthday. The legal age for marriage in Nepal is 18 years with parental consent, and 20 without, a law that is seldom observed, least of all in rural parts of the country.

Studies show that child marriages occur most frequently among the least educated, poorest girls living out in the countryside.

According to the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), 17 percent of married adolescent girls between 15 and 19 years are either pregnant or are mothers already. In fact, research shows that adolescent mothers give birth to 81 out of every 1,000 children in Nepal.

The survey also shows that 86 percent of married adolescents do not use any form of contraception, meaning that few girls are able to space their births.

Disturbed by trends in countries like Nepal, the UNFPA spotlighted teen pregnancy as the theme for this year’s World Population Day, observed annually on Jul. 11.

“Globally there are 16 million girls aged 15-19 who give birth each year – they never had the opportunity to plan their pregnancy. It is a developmental issue that goes beyond health,” Vallese stressed.

In reality, teen pregnancy can be a matter of life and death. Adolescent girls under the age of 15 are up to five times more likely to die during childbirth than women in their 20s.

The number one cause of death among girls aged 15-19 relates to complications in childbirth. Young mothers are at a high risk of suffering from complications such as obstetric fistula and uterine prolapse.

Furthermore, “the first child born to a mother aged 12-20 is at greater risk of being stunted or underweight, suffering from anaemia or even of dying before the age of five,” says Vallese.

Less visible, but equally troubling, is the host of social complications that teen mothers must navigate.

“When girls get pregnant their education stops, which means a lack of employment opportunities and poverty,” says Bhogedra Raj Dotel of the government’s family planning and adolescent sexual reproductive health division.

According to the UNFPA, 37 percent of married adolescent girls are not working and 76 percent of those who are employed are not paid in cash or kind for the work they do.

Menuka Bista, 35, is a local female community health volunteer in Champi, assisting about 55 households in her area. Bista has been advising Thapa, to ensure that the girl has a safe pregnancy.

“Radhika (Thapa) is educated, she knows she needs to go to the doctor and eat nutritious food for her baby to be safe, but she doesn’t make decisions about her body: her husband and in-laws do,” Bista told IPS.

This observation finds echo in research carried out by various experts: according to Dotel, husbands and in-laws make all the major decisions about a woman’s reproductive health, from what hospital she visits to where she will deliver her child.

For this reason, Vallese believes it is important to train husbands and family members on reproductive health and rights.

Another problem, experts say, is that almost all national policies have been designed with the assumption that adolescent pregnancies affect only married women, with little acknowledgement of the fact that unmarried teenaged girls also engage in sexual activities, said Vallese.

The penetration of the Internet and mobile phones into every aspect of daily life, coupled with a massive wave of migration of young rural men into urban areas, has created “a significant teenage population that engages in pre-martial sex,” she stressed.

Whether the teenaged girls are married or unmarried, sex education plays a major role in decreasing the number of pregnancies.

Sex education is a part of the national school curriculum from Grade 6 upwards, but teachers are not trained, and are uncomfortable talking about it. When the subject comes up in a classroom, most teachers simply skip that chapter, or defer to a health worker to explain the process of reproduction.

“There’s a general (perception) that teaching about sexual health makes girls promiscuous, but we have found it to be exactly the opposite,” says Shova KC, chair of a local cooperative that works with women in Champi.

Public health experts, meanwhile, have criticised the government for not implementing existing policies that could spare thousands of young girls from the trauma of complicated pregnancies so early on in life.

For instance, “more than 500 youth friendly service centers have been set up but progress is about more than just ticking boxes,” UNFPA Assistant Representative Latika Maskey Pradhan, told IPS.

In the future, she said, advocates must keep a close eye not only on how policies are designed but also on how they are implemented.

By Joan Erakit
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 11 2013 (IPS)

On Thursday, the international community recognises World Population Day, a time of assessment, discussion and projections for the future that necessarily gives great weight to the rights of women and girls and particularly their sexual and reproductive health.

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin. Credit: UNFPA

This past week, the Netherlands has been host to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) where equality and the rights of every person have been highlighted.

“Women’s rights are human rights,” the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, told IPS. “I would hate an institution where we are now discriminating in terms of which rights are now for women and which rights are for men.”

According to Population Action International, a non-profit organisation geared towards making contraceptives accessible to all women all over the world, some 215 million women currently lack access to family planning.

This leads to unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, medical complications during birth and even death, not to mention the economic setbacks and educational detours that may accompany the raising of a child.

As the framework for the post-2015 development agenda is being prepared, it has become clear that human rights and sexual reproductive health are intertwined with economic growth and sustainable development.

IPS correspondent Joan Erakit spoke with Dr. Osotimehin about the challenges and opportunities facing women and girls when it comes to voluntary family planning, and protecting human rights in order to sustain the post-2015 Development Agenda.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

Q: What is the relationship between sexual and reproductive health and human rights?

A: The best way to capture it is to come back to the ability of girls and women to exercise their basic human right of choice, and freedom to access education, to access services, to access opportunity. It also ensures that they can develop their full potential, and finally to make choices about how many children they want to have – if they want to have them – what’s the gap between the children they would like have, and do so without coercion from anybody.

Q: What happens to a woman when she is given the opportunity to decide when she wants to have kids?

A: What tends to happen from the experience and the research we have is that they tend to have as many children as they can afford to look after. And they also tend to have the children, given the interval, so that they can be healthy. And that has implications for contraception; so they must be able to access contraception to enable them to exercise that right to its fullest.

Q: Because economic growth and development are greatly connected to voluntary family planning, how do we show this kind of information to local communities and governments so that they can invest in family planning?

A: There are two approaches to it. The first approach is a short-term approach, which is to actually demonstrate that, from a service perspective, when you invest in family planning there is always a return on investment. For every dollar that you invest, there’s a minimum of three to six dollars return on the investment.

The long term is that the woman or the girl would be able to freely develop herself, access quality education, access skill development, be able to get a job, or start a business. Do something for herself that makes her economically viable and contribute to community in terms of development.

When a woman has access to contraception and she is able to develop her potential and she is able to have the number of children she can afford to have, the children tend to do better than the women who don’t have that access. We know for a fact that when you look at the metrics of it, girls who don’t go to school, when they have kids, the kids don’t do well. So, there is a cycle of poverty.

Once they go to school and they are older than 18, their children do better. What you are doing is ensuring that you have generations that are actually having access to several things, and in that sense building human capacity that drives economic growth.

Q: What are you looking to add to the post-2015 development framework in regards to the rights of women and girls?

A: The post-2015 development framework is one where we must assert the issues of reproductive human rights, and the fact that women and girls must be the centre of human development. If you don’t have human development and human capital development, it’s going to be difficult for you to have sustainable development.

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