Motherhood in Childhood

Sexual and reproductive health and full
enjoyment of rights are central to adolescents’
transition into adulthood and are vital to adolescents’
identity, health, well-being and personal
growth, development and fulfillment of their
potential in life.
Fully engaged, educated, healthy, informed
and productive adolescents can help break multigenerational
poverty and can contribute to the
strengthening of their communities and nations.
Countries with a large share of their populations
who are adolescents or young people have an
opportunity to reap a substantial demographic
bonus for their nations’ economies, development,
resilience and productivity. This requires investing
in adolescents’ and young people’s human
capital and expanding the range of choices
and opportunities available to them. But many
adolescents, especially girls, are denied the investments
and opportunities that would enable them
to realize their full potential. For example, 26
per cent of the world’s adolescent girls and 17
per cent of boys between the ages of 11 and
15 are not in school.
Adolescent pregnancy is a symptom of underinvestment
in girls’ human capital and the
societal pressures and structural inequities that
prevent girls from making decisions about their
health, sexual behaviour, relationships, marriage
and childbearing and that critically influence
whether they will be able to take full advantage
of opportunities for education, employment and
political participation (UNFPA, 2012d).
Preventing pregnancy thus requires dismantling
the many barriers to adolescents’ realization
of their full potential and their ability to enjoy
their rights. Paving the way to a safe and successful
transition to adulthood involves engaging
girls—and boys—in decision-making from the
“I think it is far too early
in my life to have a child
considering the time and
the love a child needs.”
Anders, 17, Denmark
individual level to the policy-making level,
enabling them to acquire the skills and the
power to voice their perspectives and priorities.
Actions that support this transition from adolescence
to adulthood are also ones that can reduce
the number of pregnancies to girls.
Because adolescent pregnancy is the result of
diverse underlying societal, economic and other
forces, preventing it requires multidimensional
strategies that are oriented towards’ girls empowerment
and tailored to particular populations of
girls, especially those who are marginalized and
most vulnerable.
Addressing unintended pregnancy among
adolescents requires holistic approaches. Because
the challenges are great and complex, no single
sector or organization can face them on its own.
Only by working in partnership, across sectors,
and in collaboration with adolescents themselves,
can constraints on their progress be removed.
Investing in girls
Many of the actions by governments and civil
society that have lowered adolescent fertility
were designed to achieve other objectives, such
as keeping girls in school, preventing HIV infection,
or stopping child marriage. All of these
58 CHAPTER 4: TAKING ACTION