MDG 5: Protecting the Sexual and Reproductive Rights and Health of our Daughters
05/12/2010
IPPF Director-General Gill Greer calls for political and financial commitment to adolescent reproductive health.
Complications from pregnancy and childbirth are the number one killers of girls aged 15-19. These young women bear more than their share of maternal mortality and morbidity worldwide, accounting for 70,000 deaths and 2.5 million unsafe abortions annually. This is both a tragic denial of human rights and a public health issue which is all too frequently overlooked.
Pregnancy should be a cause for celebration not despair, disability or death. It would cost relatively little to prevent this, and to safeguard girls' health and well-being, through inexpensive interventions such as access to family planning. However, these figures provide clear evidence that girls and young women are persistently undervalued, and their rights consistently ignored.
Sexuality is a central part of being human for people of all ages, whether or not they are sexually active. Many young people are sexually active, some willingly, some as a result of coercion, violence or entrenched attitudes that deprive them of voice or choice. Research has indicated that often the first experience is forced or coercive, with an older man. However, when young people are protected from sexual exploitation, have the opportunity to access the services and the freedom to make decisions about the most intimate aspects of their lives, they will generally make positive, healthy choices.
In designing programs and policies to meet the needs and desires of young women and girls, we must take account of the diverse realities of their lives, and their rights to the highest attainable standard of health, to education, and to dignity and respect. Nafis Sadik spoke of the freedom to control fertility as the freedom from which other freedoms flow.
Adolescent fertility need not be a problem in and of itself: when young women make an informed choice to have a child, they should be supported to do so. But all too often their choice not to have sex, or not to have a child, is violated. On the surface the 'adolescent fertility rate' indicator for MDG 5B appears a simple statistic. But in fact it can give a glimpse into the lives of young women in the developing world. Many are unlikely to have completed their education or accessed health care, including contraception, or learn about their sexual or reproductive rights. Millions will be married young, often against their will. Having their first child at an early age means they are likely to have more children close together. This in turn will impact on their health and well-being - and their children's. They are likely to be unemployed, or to earn a low wage. As a result of all these factors, their chances of lifting their families out of the vicious cycle of poverty is dramatically reduced. And ultimately, if they die as a result of their pregnancy, the chance of their children dying is also increased.
More of the world's leaders are now acknowledging the widespread ill health and death that results from young women's pregnancy and childbirth. 'Girls count and women matter' - the new, and belated, focus on reducing maternal mortality is not only a moral and public health imperative, but now an economic one as well. Mounting evidence shows that investing in the health and rights of girls and women is one of the soundest decisions a government can make. World leaders and experts in the field will gather at the Women Deliver conference in June, just weeks before the G8/G20 Summits, to discuss the importance of addressing adolescent reproductive health - among other critical issues. Now is the time to bring together the political and financial commitment to this issue that have so long been lacking. But it must not only focus on mortality but also on morbidity; not only on essential emergency obstetric care and skilled birth attendants but on valuing young women's lives and meeting their needs.
As long as society refuses to acknowledge the realities they face, girls and young women will continue to pay with their lives. Knowledge about sexuality and reproduction, and access to services, empowers girls and young women to make choices about their bodies and their lives. Comprehensive sexuality education, in and out of school, can change gender stereotypes and the traditional attitudes that disempower girls and women.
We have the largest generation of young people the world has ever seen, yet we are failing them across the world. Unless governments and world leaders invest in young people, we cannot begin to hope for social justice, resilient communities and sustainable development.
This article is part of a series that support the issues highlighted in Women Deliver.
Gill Greer is director-general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
I truly believe that embracing modern contraception, especially in the developing nations alone can greatly lead us to achieve the MDGs. The problem here is that the development plans are made for a specified population, and by the time the structural improvements are ready for use, the population has increased. So i believe that if we can find the reasons that accelerate the unmet need for modern contraception and address these, then the MDGs will be achieved much sooner than the set dates. Also, It is really inappropriate for us to focus on output and neglecting the impact of these interventions on the population. if we assess the impact of the various interventions, then we shall know what worked, and what did not.
— Florence on 2010-05-19