Sexual and reproductive health and rights are crucial entitlements relating to women and girls’ sexual and reproductive health. These rights address the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, gender-based violence, maternal mortality and the provision of essential health services.
Since the International Conference on Population and Development 2019 and the Program of Action, national SRHR policies and programmes have been demonstrated to support societies and contribute to a country’s wealth. The importance of SRHR is further underscored by section 5.6 of Sustainable Development Goal 3, dedicated to achieving SRHR for all.
Human rights-based approaches emphasising rights over needs have become the focus of sustainable strategies for change. The basic principles of this include empowerment of the marginalised, open participation, accountability, and defined and established linkages between rights-holders and duty-bearers.
For sexual and reproductive health, it also empowers citizens to claim their rights and duty-bearers to fulfil their obligations. By focusing on non-discrimination, it also specifically considers those who are vulnerable, marginalised, and discriminated against.
Achieving these principles requires coordinated, multi-sectoral approaches, based on an analytical understanding of the needs of groups, available resources, and challenges.
While many of today's adolescent girls are better educated, healthier, more aware of their rights and better equipped to advocate on their behalf than the previous generations, many face threats to their health and rights, including unmet health needs, and new as well as old risks.
Progress has been slow and uneven, and wide regional differences exist. Unmet needs are often concentrated among adolescents residing in rural areas, with limited education and belonging to economically disadvantaged households or socially excluded ethnic groups.
Adolescent girls who migrate, often on their own, are emerging in many countries as a large group at high risk of violence, exploitation and potentially poor SRH outcomes.
Although most nations have reiterated their commitment to eliminating early marriage, the practice continues in many regions of the world. It is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, where 44 percent (based on six countries) and 39 percent (based on 30 countries) of women aged 20–24 were married before age 18, and eight percent each of girls aged 15–19 were married before age 15. Many AGYW are married before the age of 18 in sub-Saharan Africa, regions that are hotspots for early marriage among girls.
Early marriage goes hand in hand with the exclusion of girls from the decision on when and whom to marry. Evidence shows that compared with young women who had married at age 18 or older, those who had married early were less likely to have been consulted on the timing of marriage and choice of spouse, as well as to have had an opportunity to get to know their spouse before. This makes them at risk of getting HIV since they lack negotiation skills.
We call upon the government to allocate more resources to sexual and reproductive health programmes that will reduce the burden of HIV infection among young people and trends in teenage pregnancy since still young people beer access to sexual and reproductive health services.
Executive director, Epic Youth Organization
