Investing in Young People: the Invincible Force
11 July marks the World Population Day established in 1989. It followed the hallmark day that occurred on 11 July 1987 when the world’s population reached five billion people.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) leads on programmes aiming to raise awareness about global population issues, challenges and achievements. According to UNFPA, the world population was 7, 162, 119, 000 in 2013 of whom 3, 610, 470, 000 were male and 3, 551 649, 000 were female.Such figures show no stark differences between the male and female population. They do actually indicate a 50:50 ratio of men and women populating the earth. 1.8 billion are under the age of 25 making one quarter of the world’s population.
Investing in Young People is the 2014 World Population Day theme. Endowing young people means promoting their healthy habits, ensuring their education, employment opportunities, access to health services and their social protection. It appears that such theme should be a given in international and national policy-making. In fact, as UNFPA shed light with its work, poverty, inequality and discrimination thwart the lives of the current and future young generations, especially female.
Worldwide more than 15 million girls aged 15 to 19 give birth every year. 9 out 10 adolescent pregnancies take place in the context of child or early marriage. Despite legislative commitments to end child marriage, 1 in 3 girls will likely be married before they are 18 in developing countries. 1 out of 9 girls will be married before their 15th birthday.
Gender discrimination highly affects female access to education thus hindering prospects for reducing poverty. While the largest gains in primary school completion over the past decade were observed among girls, secondary education remains a challenge especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-West Asia.This is because school may be an unsafe place due to gender-based violence. Worldwide, up to 50 per cent of sexual assaults are committed against girls under the age of 16. Girls may be pulled from school to be married. After marriage, young girls’ access to formal, or even informal, education is severely limited because of domestic chores, childbearing and enforcing social norms whereby marriage and schooling are irreconcilable.
Despite such challenges, it is uplifting to know that there are girls like Malala Yousafzai who can stand up discriminating socio-political systems and the right to education by lobbying for their voices to be heard with courage and self-abnegation. 12th July 2013 was Malala’s 16th birthday, which has been dubbed as Malala Day. The UN Global Initiative on Education is precisely an emblematic instance on investing in young world leaders who convened to formulate a Youth Resolution to assert the education they want.
Regarding war-torn areas, among 42 million people who fled their homes because of war, 80 per cent are women, children and young people. At least 10 million are estimated to be girls and young women. More than 140 million girls live in fragile States affected by armed conflict facing violence, abuse and exploitation. They are the age group most often recruited by armed forces or armed groups as child soldiers or sex slaves. They are most likely to be trafficked for exploitative labour or commercial sex. They are the primary targets for sexual violence and at highest risk of HIV/AIDS infection. Nevertheless, the adolescent age group is the least likely to receive assistance or protection during conflict. This is because humanitarian assistance has typically focused on the urgent health and nutrition needs of under-five and primary school-age children.
On the other side, it is promising to observe that the current generation of young people is the most inter-connected in history. In 2011, young people under the age of 25 accounted for 45 per cent of total internet users. Globally, 36 per cent of young people aged less than 25 have used the internet, despite wide disparities between developed and developing economies. In the developed world, 77 per cent of young people under the age of 25 used the internet. In the developing world, 30 per cent of the under 25-year-olds used the Internet. Despite these inequalities, the total number of internet users below the age of 25 in developing countries is already three times as high as that in the developed world. Thus, investing in young people means to capture and channel ground-breaking abilities especially related to the means of communication.
For instance, internet access drove innovative initiatives like the one undertaken in Madagascar. The project aimed at tackling health taboos among young people. It shed light as to how social media can assist in addressing emotional, interpersonal and sexual matters ‘by, for and with’ young people.
Little Lost Girl by Ray Dillon
Finally, one minute should be spent in remembering that an estimated figure of 200 million girls is missing from the count of the world population. 200 million girls were denied to live and fulfil their potentials because they were the wrong and unwanted sex. Investing in young people is the key to counteract such instances of gender discrimination. Their education, their ideas are able to cross boundaries of time and space, their energy and innovative and critical thinking could overtake and rule out similar practices because empowering young people makes an invincible force.
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