Protect young girls from sexual exploitation - Osotimehin
The Executive Director of the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), Dr Babatunde Osotimehin, has advised older men to help protect young girls rather than use them to satisfy their sexual pleasure.
According to him, the largest number of young people living with new HIV infections in the world today was among adolescent African girls.
He, however, said there was no corresponding high prevalence rates among young African boys, saying, “Men like us, old men are doing it. So we have to stop it, we have to protect the young adolescent girl from old men and it is something that must happen and must happen now.”
Dr Osotimehin, who is a physician and public health expert, gave the advice when he delivered the keynote address at the opening of the seventh Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights (ACSHR) last Wednesday in Accra.
The conference
The three-day event is being held under the distinguished patronage of the First Lady of the Republic of Ghana and President of the African First Ladies Against HIV & AIDS (OAFLA), Dr Nana Lordina Mahama.
Curious Minds, a youth-led organisation, coordinated the conference on the theme: ‘Realising Demographic Dividend in Africa: The Critical Importance of Adolescents and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights’.
Invest in the youth
Dr Osotimehin said out of Africa’s population of about one billion, about 50 to 60 per cent of the people were under the age of 30.
That, he said, implied that the greatest assets in Africa were young people and as such there was the urgent need to do more for the youth “if they are going to participate actively in economic development.”
He also reinforced the importance of investing in the health of people, particularly women and girls, in the areas of their sexual reproductive health, their capacities and capabilities, in the expansion of their opportunities to realise their full potential and to achieve sustainable development.
Invest in education
Dr Osotimehin also called for the needed educational infrastructure that would provide an opportunity for the youth to be thought and listened to.
“When they speak they don’t speak my language, they don’t speak your language, so we should never pretend that we know what they want, we must listen to them, allow them to put their own thoughts together.”
“We must also give them the opportunity to do what they have to do. They will fail but it’s only in failure that they learn. We should never restrict them and it is important that Africa must give that opportunity to young people”, he added.
For otherwise healthy reproductive young people, Dr Osotimehin said the greatest need was to offer them sexual reproductive care and preventive services needed to avoid unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV or if pregnant, the terrifying spectacle of an illegal abortion or living with their babies without medical care.
Engage women and girls
Speaking on behalf of women representatives at the conference, Madam Catherine Nyambura, a young African feminist and the Deputy Director of Dandelion Kenya, said policies, practice and programmatic actions towards the realisation of the demographic dividend in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) era, must take cognizance of the fact that inclusion and empowerment of young women and girls had been unacceptably slow.
In that regard, she said governments, organisations, multi-lateral agencies and other institutions must provide the spaces, opportunities and resources to enable women and young girls to make their contribution.
“Engaging young women and girls should be done meaningfully, recognising our diversity, unique insights and capabilities”, she said.
Policy formation
“We envision an Africa where outcomes of evidence-based research guides policy formation and programming for sexual health and rights, an Africa where governments enable access to factors of production recognising and addressing the gendered barriers to accessing land, technology, capital and labour that lock young women and girls out of the regional trade agenda”, she added.
Madam Nyambura, therefore, called on the Organisation of African First Ladies Association to urge African State parties to accelerate access to quality education, including access to comprehensive sexuality education.
She also urged them to eliminate barriers to accessing factors of production such as land, technology, capital and labour, stressing, “We ask for your support in accelerating development of policies to facilitate young women and girls access to Africa’s resources in our quest for economic empowerment and overall realisation of the demographic dividend.”
Need support
Akosua Agyepong from the Youth Action Movement, who spoke on behalf of adolescents, stressed the need to build and sustain a strong partnership between young people, families, communities and revered leaders, saying, “This partnership is one that would be stronger and greater than any economic partnership you establish as governments.”
She also asked for the formulation and implementation of policies and laws that protect the sexual rights of each and every single individual, suggesting for example that the age of consent to marriage should be pegged at 18 years, with no exceptions.
