Accessible sexual and reproductive healthcare is key to addressing population issues and gender equality; combating maternal deaths, sexual violence and exposure to HIV/AIDS
As a person under the age of 25, I represent a demographic containing half the people on our planet. While it’s a cliché to say that young people are the future, it stands true that our beliefs and decisions about sexual behaviour and reproductive health are the very choices that determine and define humanity’s future. With nearly 1.8 billion people aged 10-25 today, we represent history’s largest generation of adolescents, and about 85 per cent of us live in the developing world.
The onset of adulthood marks a period of time when there’s simply a lot going on physically, mentally and socially in one’s life. Thus, in an ideal world, access to sexual and reproductive healthcare to the youth would be a given, especially in a world marked by the onset of modern technology and advancements in medical science.
It was very recently, just a few months ago, that India was officially declared polio-free. Until the early ‘90s, India was classified as hyper-endemic for the disease, with an estimated 500 to 1,000 children getting afflicted daily. Polio was a reality that this generation has grown up with, and some of us still have friends and relatives who continue live with the condition. It seemed too far-fetched a dream to protect the largest generation of the second most populous country in the world from such a rampant disease. And yet, India did it. If the country can manage to protect young people from polio, surely providing them with SRH should be a low-hanging fruit in comparison. But it isn’t.
What makes sexual and reproductive health issues challenging, especially in the developing world, is the stigma attached to adolescent sexuality. This is a time when most people explore new relationships as well as their own sexuality. Although most people become sexually active during adolescence, they are often flat-out denied access to the health services and education they need. Cultural taboos against youth sexuality and gender equality often translate to pockets of opposition to access to SRH information and services for fear of promoting promiscuity among the age group.
And as misinformed and hazardous to society as these attitudes are, they end up wielding enormous influence over the public dialogue and on politicians and policymakers. Most adolescents in India who went through the school education system never encountered SRH awareness, and any new efforts immediately see opposition from groups protesting ‘Westernisation’ and promotion of ‘immoral’ behaviour. If a 25 year old cannot even utter the word ‘condom’ without palpitations in the chest, how can he ever be expected to buy or use oneIJ
We can similarly look at the spread of sexually transmitted infections, and how the youth is denied protection from them because our institutions fail to treat the issue with seriousness and regard for their wellbeing. Africa, for example, has been particularly plagued by HIV/AIDS, and Uganda once had the worst incidence of the condition across the world. Attempting to address this epidemic while keeping in check with the Church’s priorities regarding messaging to the youth, an ‘ABC campaign’ was launched, ‘ABC’ being “Abstinence, Be faithful, Correct use of condoms”. This was a commendable initiative, since abstinence can be an effective way of not getting STIs. But so is usage of condoms, which also prevents unwanted pregnancies, in line with the Church’s pro-life stance.
Nevertheless, religious authorities still disapproved of it, and Pope Benedict XVI, who as the leader of the worldwide Catholic faith can vastly impact communities globally, said that condoms ‘increase’ AIDS epidemic in Africa, thus putting hundreds of millions of youth across Uganda and the world at risk. Even though the Church did try to improve upon their position on contraception in later years, youth sexuality is still treated as an area of ‘moral concern’ and not as a significant public health issue, especially in the developing world.
Developed countries do not have it any better either. The United States recently saw massive opposition to affordable public healthcare, mainly directed at clauses that called for provision of sexual and reproductive health services. This discussion even brought out abhorrent attitudes towards female sexuality such as victim blaming for sexual assault and other forms of ‘slut-shaming’. Does it come as a surprise that this purported superpower and beacon of development and industrialisation sees nearly 13 million adolescents give birth each yearIJ Young Americans (ages 15 to 24) account for 40 per cent of new HIV infections, and sexual and gender-based violence against youth is widespread.
All this goes to show that if India wants to address population issues; gender equality; combat maternal deaths, sexual violence and exposure to HIV/AIDS; and give young people a good, healthy start on their lives, the right to sexual and reproductive health and family planning information and services must be promoted, because SRH is no child’s play.
(The Writer is the founder of Sustainable Growth Initiative, and the editor for Mind (the Mensa India magazine))
