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Adolescents and Young People
Providing age-appropriate information about sexuality
and preventing pregnancy and infection has been
shown to encourage responsible behaviour (including
abstinence, delay of sexual initiation and limitation
of partners). Besides school-based programmes, efforts
are being made to reach out-of-school youth who are
often the most vulnerable and at risk.
Since the ICPD, many innovative methods and
media have been used, including plays and concerts,
mass media messages, sports events, telephone hotlines,
and peer counselling and peer education by
trained young people. Programmes increasingly focus
on giving adolescents life skills as well as imparting
information related to sexuality.
Peer education programmes can help young people
understand how expectations about gender roles undermine
their reproductive health, and can give them
confidence to resist those norms. Some, for example,
aim to empower young people to refuse sexual relations
and assert their right to say “no”, as well as to
insist on safer sex and the use of condoms if sexually
active. Others encourage young men to challenge prevailing
notions of male dominance in relationships
and tolerance of coercion and sexual violence.
Community participation is also important. In
Cambodia, community leaders, teachers, parents and
even monks (many of whom are young people themselves)
are receiving education on reproductive health
issues so their understanding and support for adolescents
increases.(25)
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