Children pivotal in fight against poverty and HIV/Aids: report

Meeting adolescents' reproductive health needs is an urgent priority in the global fight against poverty and HIV/Aids, according to 'The State of World Population 2003' report by the United Nations Population Fund.

Neglect and under-funding of programmes enabling young people to avoid unwanted pregnancy, unsafe childbirth and sexually transmitted infections are undermining development and spreading HIV/Aids. These are the key findings of UNFPA’s annual flagship report, launched today by the group's Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.

HIV/Aids has become a disease of the young, the report stresses, fuelled by poverty, gender inequality and a severe lack of information and services for prevention. Half of all new HIV infections, and at least a third of the more than 333 million new cases of curable sexually transmitted infections each year, occur in people aged 15 to 24. Yet, only a small percentage know they are infected, and a majority of young people are ignorant about how HIV is transmitted.

While education programmes have been shown to be highly effective in promoting healthier behaviour in adolescents—in Uganda, for example—they are under-funded and meet only a fraction of the need. The report notes that a study of 107 countries found that 44 did not include AIDS education in their curricula.

Some 1.2 billion people — one person in five — are between ages 10 and 19, the largest number of adolescents in history. Half of them are poor; one in four live in extreme poverty, on less than $1 a day. The report, subtitled, 'Making 1 Billion Count: Investing in Adolescents’ Health and Rights', examines their condition, in the context of changing social norms and lifestyles, including weakening of family support systems, amid globalization and urbanization.

In developing countries, some 82 million girls now between ages 10 and 17 will marry before their 18th birthday, disrupting their education and limiting their opportunities. Some 14 million teenagers, married and unmarried, give birth each year; many face serious pregnancy-related illnesses, and at least five million undergo unsafe abortion. Those aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely as women in their 20s to die in childbirth. But according to the report, unmet need for family planning among adolescents is twice as high as among the adult population.

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