State of World Population 2012 - UNFPA Haiti

State-run family planning programmes. Some ofthese individuals may seek to prevent unintendedpregnancies. For example, men who have sexwith men and bisexuals may choose to engagein heterosexual sex without wishing to havechildren. In other situations, lesbians and gaymen may wish to plan families. Sexual violenceagainst people based on their perceived or actualsexual orientation makes women vulnerable tounintended pregnancy as a result of rape, requiringaccess to emergency contraception.Child brides. Despite declines in rates of earlymarriage, the practice of marrying girls beforethe age of 18—the internationally agreed age ofadulthood—remains widespread sub-SaharanAfrica and South Asia. It remains relativelyuncommon for young men. Estimates suggestthat 34 per cent of women between the ages of20 and 24 in developing countries were marriedor in a union before their eighteenth birthday.In 2010, this was equivalent to almost 67 millionwomen. Social expectations, including theexpectation that girls will marry early, shape girls’sexual behaviour, compromising their schoolperformance, and making them vulnerable toearly marriage.Child marriage leads to the initiation of sexualactivity during a period when girls know littleabout their bodies, their sexual and reproductivehealth, and their right to family planning. Childwives are also under intense social pressure toprove their fertility, which makes them more likelyto have early and closely-spaced pregnancies.Even when child wives have accurate, comprehensiveknowledge about how to prevent earlytNujoud, Sana'a,Yemen, was marriedto her husband, morethan 20 years hersenior, when she wasonly 10 years old. Theyare now divorced.©VII/Stephanie SinclairTHE STATE OF WORLD POPULATION 201265