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| Safeguarding
a Future of Promise Empower Girls to Delay Pregnancy until Physical and Emotional Maturity Prepare Boys and Young Men to Be Responsible Fathers and Friends Encourage Adults–Especially Parents–to Listen and Respond to Young People Help Young People Avoid Risks and Hardships Provide Education with Accurate and Timely Information Provide Services That Suit Young People's Situations and Concerns Involve Young People in Decisions Affecting Their Lives |
Mona quit school when she was 9
years old. She was clever and liked to laugh with her school friends, but her parents
wanted her home to look after younger sisters and brothers. At the age of 14, Mona married
a boy of 17 from her village in Nepal. Stories about sterilization frightened her,
so she "let God decide about the number of children" she would deliver. Mona may not have known the dangers of early pregnancy. Childbearing is much more dangerous for women under 18 than for fully grown adults–and for their children, too, who are more likely to fall sick or die in infancy. Access to obstetric care can help, but the combination of immature bodies, poverty, lack of education and lack of access to medical care are factors that gravely increase the risks. Would young women choose to take such risks? Many would not, if given the choice. When she was pregnant with her seventh child, Mona met her long-ago classmate, Hari, now 20, in the street. He believes Mona never had any control over her own life. "If Mona were given the opportunity of education to build a future she would not become the slave of tradition and the society. This would lead to greater independence and higher quality of her life," he says.
Lower Status Means Higher Risk Carolina, 18, says that in Guatemala boys are seen as better than girls from birth. "When it’s a boy, everyone is very happy and there is the famous expression ‘se ganó la gallina,’ which is roughly the same as saying ‘you won the lottery’; yet when it’s a girl, people say with satisfaction but less fanfare, ‘Now your home’s little servant has been born.’'' In many places, negative attitudes and prejudices hold back moves to help adolescents. This is especially true for girls. Traditions such as mutilating girls’ genitals are symptoms of wider prejudice against women. Shana, 22, of the United States, says young women with disabilities encounter constant challenges to their participation in society: "Special attention should be paid to the situation of disabled girls and women, since they often face double discrimi-nation– for their gender and for their disability." Learning more about the rights of women and girls is part of helping people understand more about gender equality. These rights are spelled out in laws and declarations agreed to by nearly every country in the world in one form or another, as in the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Such statements are important, but seem far from daily life for Rim, a 15-year-old from Tunisia: "The gap between the good intentions put down in texts and the reality lived by the majority of women is still enormous." More positive attitudes towards girls and women will result in better health, education and opportunities to succeed. Mwimpe, 19, is starting the process with her boyfriend in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to whom she exclaimed, "Look at me, man! I am your colleague, your foil, your companion and your equal partner in all human endeavours and achievements.... As long as I am prevented from realizing my fullest potential, you won’t be able to realize yours." When young women can control their sexual and reproductive lives, they will be able to contribute more to development. They will be empowered to exercise their human rights more fully. Meanwhile, Mona and young women in almost every part of the world continue to bear the heavier burden of discrimination and risk.
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