P R E S S   S U M M A R Y

Young people need more and better education and information about sexuality, how to avoid pregnancy and STDs, and how to respect the rights of partners, so they can make responsible decisions (including the option of delaying sexual activity). Young men especially need to learn appropriate behaviour.

Family life and population education, particularly peer education, has proved effective in diverse cultural settings. (See press feature, "Peers Teach Others, ‘We Can Become Anything We Want to Be’".) The evidence is that sex education promotes responsibility rather than promiscuity.

Educational efforts must reach the millions of students who never attend secondary school and vulnerable out-of-school youth, including those who live on the streets.

Parents increasingly recognize the value of education in the modern world and the advantage of spending more to educate fewer children. Many developing countries have increased primary enrolment rates, but some of the least developed have recently been losing ground. There are wide gaps in education between higher and lower status families, and in some countries between girls and boys.

For girls, the benefits of schooling are striking: an educated woman is more likely than others to seek medical care and maintain her family’s health, and she often has a greater say in decisions such as when and whom to marry. She is more likely to delay her first pregnancy and to limit and space her children; and she is more likely to use modern, safe and effective contraception.

For young women, wage work offers economic opportunities, but also the chance to make wider social contacts and marry later with more resources and skills. At the same time, in many countries the rights of young workers, especially women, are often neglected.

Many countries have adopted youth policies. Non-governmental youth organizations are increasingly active (but often involve only young men). Recent international meetings have called on youth groups to include activities related to adolescent sexual and reproductive health.

More effective programmes for adolescents require better data and research on adolescent sexual behaviour and reproductive health, in a broader context of social, family and gender relations.

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