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Adolescent Reproductive Health
Adolescents have a right to accurate information and appropriate services
This page contains key facts and statistics on the subject of Adolescent Reproductive Health. Click on 'Overview', 'Facts & Statistics' or 'Stories from the Field' for more detailed information on the topic, in different formats.
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Click here for more resources on adolescent reproductive health.
Youth friendly services in Uganda
Photo by: Women’s Refugee Commission, 2010
Key Messages
Conflicts and natural disasters destabilize social infrastructure; leaving many children and adolescents, particularly girls, especially vulnerable to sexual violence, exploitative labor and trafficking.1
The risks to young displaced women forced to trade sex to meet their basic survival needs include sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion, disability and death.
Adolescents affected by armed conflict are more likely than younger children to be recruited into military service, miss out on an education, be sexually abused, abducted or held as sexual slaves and contract STIs, including HIV/AIDS.
Conflict-affected adolescents (especially young women) who live under marginalized circumstances in refugee camps, urban slums, or as child soldiers are highly vulnerable to sexual coercion, exploitation, and violence and may have no choice but to engage in high risk or transactional sex for survival.
Adolescents want and need accurate information about sexual and reproductive health, and they have a right to access reproductive health (RH) services.
Comprehensive, youth-centered approaches to RH-inclusive programming in conflict situations are critical to ensuring the protection, care and development of young displaced persons.
It is necessary to incorporate the input of adolescents during the design and implementation process in order to better reach displaced youth, provide needed services, and better protect at-risk adolescents.
Special efforts must be made to include both married and unmarried female adolescents in RH programs as their participation is often limited due to cultural attitudes and domestic responsibilities.
Not only should youth be made aware of RH services but so should parents and community leaders in order to ensure that youth are supported in their efforts to access beneficial programs and services.
Female adolescents who want a formal education often face numerous social and physical barriers in accessing school; including the responsibility to care for their siblings or their own children, sexual harassment at school, and lack of access to female hygienic supplies.
Many young people—especially young women—are eager to leave rural communities for what they perceive to be greater opportunities in urban areas. This urban migration makes them particularly vulnerable to coercive or survival sex, putting them at increased risk for STIs, HIV or unintended pregnancy.
As adolescents’ transition into adulthood, RH programs and services that have skilled health providers, in combination with other social services including comprehensive sexuality education, can help prevent unwanted pregnancies, maternal mortality and morbidity, as well as sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS.2
Data demonstrate that adolescent girls living in rural areas who are not in school and who are often married as children are vulnerable to maternal mortality and morbidity, unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortion, HIV infection, and sexual violence and abuse.3
Updated December 2010. Please note: while this site is periodically updated, it is up to the user’s discretion to verify that the facts provided are the most current.
References
Note: Links provided only if resource is available to public.
1 Save the Children, State of the World’s Mothers 2005: The Power and Promise of Girls’ Education, New York, 2005, p. 15.
2 Laski, L. & Wong, S. (2010). Addressing Diversity in Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Services. International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics. 110, 510-512.
3 Laski, L. & Wong, S. (2010). Addressing Diversity in Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Services. International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics. 110, 510-512.
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