Dispatches - September
RHIYA Achievements Points to the ‘Way Forward’ for Adolescent Programming in Asia
BRUSSELS --- On the occasion of the conclusion of the EC/UNFPA Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in Asia (RHIYA), parliamentarians, civil society representatives and officials from seven Asian countries and the EU will gather in Brussels for the high-level conference ‘Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health: The Way Forward For Asia’.
At the conference, which takes place in Brussels on 28 September, a range of stakeholders will discuss achievements made in improving young people’s sexual and reproductive health in seven South and South East Asian countries, and identify strategies for future efforts and programmes in the region.
The RHIYA is a large-scale, multi-partner initiative that has been implemented by more than 30 organizations in seven South and South East Asian countries during the past four years. Its unique structure and approach of partnership between the European Union, UNFPA, Governments and NGOs set a precedent in terms of mutual commitment to achieve the ICPD agenda.
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RHIYA Exhibit |
South Caucasus Youth Festival focus on Healthy Lifestyle for Young People
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BATUMI, Georgia – Young people in the southern Caucacus have organized a three-day festival to promote a healthy lifestyle among their peers, change their attitudes and behaviours towards harmful practices and raise their awareness about their sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Young people from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, government officials, media representatives, business representatives, officials from UNFPA and EC, famous musicians and guests from BSEC countries took part in the 2nd South Caucasus Youth Festival, CAUCASUS HEALTHY WAVE 12-14 September in Batumi, by the Black Sea.
One of the most important events of the festival – in addition to all the sports and outreach activities – was a series of intensive training sessions designed for media and regional youth NGOs on youth and sexual and reproductive health and rights problems.
The training sessions looked at how best to cover sexual and reproductive health issues, use of data by the media, developing and passing correct non information to the general public, outreach and advocacy.
Thematic brochures were distributed to particpants on a range of issues.
“I don’t want to ever have sex in my life after reading about all these diseases!” said one 19-year-old participant. He added: “I’m joking of course, but it is really important to know how to look after your health, it’s very useful information.”
This is the second such festival in the region. The First South Caucasus Youth festival in Tbilisi, Georgia on 1-2 December 2006, raised significant interest among young people and the general public in effectively fighting HIV and AIDS in the South Caucasus. It was one of the largest events linked to World Aids Day, commemmorated on 1 December, in the region.
The festival was conducted within the framework of the European Commission (EC)/UNFPA regional project “Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in the South Caucasus” (RHIYC).
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European Union/UNFPA Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in Asia (RHIYA) |
In Many Countries Son Preference is Alive and Well, While Girls Go Missing
GENEVA – Despite many efforts to change hearts and minds, the practice of choosing boys over girls before or right after birth continues in a number of countries.
Son preference has been associated mostly with China and India, yet there is a growing recognition that it is a more widespread phenomenon and that others practice sex selection as well, by choosing to terminate the birth of or abandon girl children. However, it is particularly difficult to obtain data to fully analyze the situation.
“There are many reasons for son preference,” said Siri Tellier, Director of the UNFPA Geneva Office, during a discussion organized at the United Nations by the Working Group on the Girl Child of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CONGO). “I think we will all agree that there are few, if any, countries where there is not some aspect of preferential treatment for males. However, what we are interested in here is where this results in a demographically significant selection of boys.
“Overwhelmingly, the reasons are economic – when inheritance of property can only pass to the son, for example, making girls less desirable if parents want to remain on to their land and have some security in their old age. The dowry system is a major reason in India,” Tellier continued. “There are also cultural reasons for son preference, such as inheritance of family names, or maintaining ancestral graves after death, a task often performed by men. In other words, having a son can be seen as a vital aspect of living up to your obligations to your family lineage.”
A number of international agreements attempt to reduce pre-natal sex selection, including the 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, and national laws but, many activists say, this is not enough.
“Countries that have faced up to this issue have adopted a variety of strategies to improve on the situation,” Tellier said. “Perhaps the most important is that they have begun to review social policy changes to improve the value and status of girls and women. If parents can see in the girl child an investment as good as that in a boy, attitudes will shift.”
Other strategies include awareness and education campaigns, legal changes to outlaw sex selection or discrimination against women who have daughters, and their implementation, and gathering more and better data with which to fight this issue.
“Some specific strategies are showing at least some success,” Tellier said. “First of all, I think it is courageous of countries that they are openly discussing the issue and including it in their national plans. That is an important step. In China, for example, there are initiatives to provide additional pension assistance to parents who have daughters.
“In the Republic of Korea, a major campaign within the medical profession, pointing to sex identification as ethically unacceptable is credited with reducing the sex ratio from a high of 115 in 1994. In India there has been broad engagement of civil society to advocate against the practice. However, the great challenge is still to evaluate how well each of these strategies works, and to learn from each other.”
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Restoring Sex Ratio Balance |
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Harmful Practices |
Chasing the Dream on Show in Berlin
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BERLIN — The German hit band Culcha Candela and MTV presenter Caro Korneli were bearers of an unlikely youth message to young fans last week: support the United Nations’ Millennium Campaign call to Stand Up Against Poverty in October 2007 and take action to achieve the MDGs.
They made their call at a news conference at the international music fair and festival 'Popkomm 2007', where they opened Die Welt der Jugend im Licht der Acht Entwicklungsziele, the German version of the photo exhibition Chasing the Dream .
“In a world where half the population is under 26, access to reproductive health care and information is essential,” said Karin Heisecke of the UNFPA Brussels Office. “Every minute, ten people are infected with HIV, and half of them are under 24. For 15-to-19 year old women in developing countries, childbirth is the leading cause of death."
The German UN youth delegate Jonathan Mack also shared his experience as a young advocate for the MDGs by highlighting the important role of young people in taking the lead to bring about social change.
“Chasing the Dream” brought the realities and challenges of young people to professionals, journalists and artists from the international music scene. In addition to Culcha and Caro, visitors to the exhibit included the musicians Billy Bragg and Sammy Deluxe, patron of Popkomm.
The exhibition explores the Millennium Development Goals through the eyes of eight young people. It is an interagency exhibit first unveiled at the United Nations General Assembly in 2005. It is coordinated in Germany by the NGO Kumulus e.V.
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European Youth Leaders Discuss Sexual and Reproductive Health Challenges
LISBON – More than 150 European youth leaders from across the political spectrum ended a two-day meeting on the sexual and reproductive health challenges facing young people. The youth leaders represented Young Decision Makers – Parliamentarians or members of youth sections of political parties under 30.
A panel of experts including Judith Bruce of the Population Council, Timothy Shand of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and Siri Tellier of UNFPA presented the group with data, information and recommendations on reproductive health worldwide. Thierry Lucas of the EU/UNFPA Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in Asia guided one of the workshops on practical steps on implementation.
“It is very interesting to see young decision makers from a variety of political backgrounds discussing sexual and reproductive health and engaging themselves to follow up. I was particularly pleased that a large number were young men – so often it is only the women who engage, but we also need the men,” said Ms. Tellier, Director of the UNFPA Geneva Office. “It will take young people of all political colours working together to help improve legislation on reproductive health, something we sorely need. As UNFPA states very clearly: young people not only have some of the most pressing health needs, their participation in leadership on the issue is also essential.
“What also came out clearly is the need parliamentarians have for more focused and consistent data to back up the cases they try to make, data that is broken down not only by sex but by age as well,” she added. “There is a wealth of data, but unless it is presented in digestible form, it is not useful for busy parliamentarians.”
That need for greater disaggregation or breakdown in data was given clear focus in Judith Bruce’s presentation. She highlighted the particular vulnerability not only of ‘youth’, which often emphasizes the 15-24 age group, but the particular and often invisible issues faced by pre-pubescent girls aged 10-14.
“A quarter of all international migrants are youth aged 10-24, and there are more than 10 million displaced young people of that age,” said Dr. Bruce. Risks faced by displaced women and girls include rape, domestic violence, exploitative labour practices, involuntary recruitment into armed forces and trafficking.
Dr Bruce drew attention to the small but significant number of 10-14 year olds living with only one or no parents. In Malawi, for example, she said 23 per cent were living with one parent, and 31 per cent with neither parent. In the Dominican Republic, the figures were 32 per cent and 22 per cent.
“Socially isolated girls are six times more likely to have been physically forced to have sex than socially connected girls,” she said. Dr. Bruce also drew attention to the following situations: an increasing number of girls being married while children, the fact that marriage doesn’t protect girls from HIV infection, that poverty increases the risk of ‘unwanted’ first sex, and that many reproductive health programmes aren’t reaching those young girls who need them the most.
The conference was organized by the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development as part of its Young Decision Maker Initiative and the Portuguese Family Planning Association (Associação Para o Planeamento da Família), in collaboration with the Portuguese Institute for Youth, the Portuguese All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population and Development, the Portuguese State Secretary for Youth and Sport, the Portuguese State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation and the Portuguese Ministry for Parliamentary Affairs. Portugal holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union until the end of the year.
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Framework for Action on Adolescents and Youth |
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Moving Young |
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Growing Up Urban |
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Supporting Adolescents and Youth |
Anti-Poverty Advocate Jeffrey Sachs Calls MDGs Achievable
 From the left: Chairman of the Danish Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Steen Gade, Mr. Jeffrey Sachs and Director, UNDP Nordic Office, Mr. Jacob Simonsen |
COPENHAGEN – “The Millennium Development Goals are achievable, if world leaders live up to their global commitments,” according to Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute and Professor at Columbia University.
Dr. Sachs was addressing ministers, key political stakeholders, youth politicians, and selected representatives from civil society and academia at a series of public events across Scandinavia last week.
During his three-day visit to Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki, Dr. Sachs called on donors to focus on Africa, which lags far behind Asia and Latin America in meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Dr. Sachs said at least two thirds of all overseas development assistance should be invested in agriculture, health, education, infrastructure, family planning and women’s empowerment in Africa. This, he said, is a continent imprisoned in high poverty because of its disease burden, high fertility rates, environmental stress, low agricultural productivity and economic isolation.
Dr. Sachs also encouraged the Nordic countries to continue taking the lead in international development cooperation by setting a good example. He said Nordic countries should hold their European neighbours and American counterparts accountable for the promises they made at the Gleneagles and Monterrey summits and in the International Conference on Population Development’s Programme of Action (ICPD).
Dr. Sachs was invited by the UN agencies in Copenhagen (UNFPA, UNDP, WFP and UNICEF) and the Nordic Parliaments as part of a UNDG campaign to mark the halfway point to 2015, the target date for the eight international agreed Millennium Development Goals to reduce extreme poverty, disease, and hunger. From 2002 to 2006, Dr. Sachs was Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals.
Dr. Sachs also visited Oslo to take part in the second African Green Revolution Conference from 30 August – 1 September, where experts – including African government representatives – met to discuss sustainable agricultural development. The conference was supported by the Norwegian Development Agency, Norad
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