Adolescent Reproductive Health in Times of Crisis

In a crisis, the family support so vital to young people often collapses. A network that might have provided protection, help and information disintegrates, leaving young women and men more vulnerable than ever before. At the same time, youth traumatized by violence or other catastrophic events tend to engage in higher-risk behaviour.

Emergency situations increase already significant risks:

• Every day, more than 500,000 young people are infected with a sexually-transmitted infection.

• Young women are more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS than young men. In some African countries, average rates among teenage girls are more than five times higher than among boys.

• Early pregnancy carries great risk. Girls aged 10 to 14 are five times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth than women aged 20 to 24. So does unsafe abortion: more than 4.4 million young women aged 15 to 19 have abortions every year, 40 per cent of which are performed under dangerous conditions.

Young refugees and displaced persons may be deeply affected by the absence of role models, breakdown of social and cultural systems, personal traumas such as the loss of family members, exposure to violence and the disruption of school and friendships.

UNFPA identifies ways to reach out to adolescent refugees and internally displaced persons, to provide the sexual and reproductive health information and services they need. This includes counselling and the provision of youth-friendly information and support, which is important for young people who have been traumatized or find their lives disrupted. Counselling can be especially crucial for young victims of sexual violence, female or male. UNFPA emergency programmes for adolescents are designed to welcome youth living in chaotic situations, and to provide them with privacy, confidentiality, and, whenever possible, a health worker of the same sex.

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