Raising young people's awareness of sexual and reproductive health matters: Opportunities and challenges

A study of Filipino parents with adolescent children ages 10-19 in two areas in the Philippines reveal the overwhelming negative attitude towards sex education which may explain the low level of sex education both at home and in schools. Many parents who do not discuss these matters feel that their adolescent children are still too young for such topics. Other feel a great deal of discomfort discussing topics which to them are too vulgar and embarrassing to discuss particularly with their own children. Many parents distrust sex education in school and would prefer giving sex education to their adolescent children although some of them admit they are not equipped to handle such matters effectively. Findings also demonstrate the significant gap between the time when the children exhibit readiness to open discussions on matters relating to sex and the time when parents think it is appropriate to start such discussions to take place. The good news is that parents are open to future intervention such as training on parenting that will among others equip them with better skills on how to better handle their adolescents’ sex education.

I assess the impact of Ishraq, a second-chance informal education program for adolescent girls in rural Upper Egypt. The program provides literacy and life skills. Participation is voluntary resulting in a potential selection bias. An experimental design with randomization of treatment and control villages was infeasible. Instead, propensity score matching to identify control villages matching Ishraq villages in terms of population size, poverty level and prevalence of girls’ education.
The evaluation method used is propensity score matching at the end of the program. Additionally, the IV method is used where the instrument is the distance to the youth center YC, where the program is housed, as it proxies cost of participation. A set of attitudinal and knowledge outcomes is used to measure the impact of Ishraq: (1) improvement in girls’ functional literacy, (2) mobility and access to safe social spaces, (3) acquisition of life skills, including financial literacy skills, knowledge of hygiene, general health, puberty changes and reproductive health, and participation in sports, and (4) empowerment-related outcomes including attitudes toward gender roles and marriage, knowledge of women’s rights and basic civic facts, attitudes toward FGM, self-esteem and participation in decision-making.

In India, low female age at marriage, early childbearing initiation, high infant and maternal mortality are the major barriers in attaining the MDGs. Thus, family life education (FLE) that includes basic understanding of human reproduction, sex education, contraceptive knowledge and women's rights is a necessary condition to meet the goals. This paper attempts to examine the level, source of receiving FLE among unmarried women aged 15-24 and factors affecting its access and quality in India. The information available on FLE from 1,66,260 unmarried women (15-24) in the nationwide district level household survey (2007-08) have been analysed. At all India level 73% of unmarried women are aware of FLE and 49% ever received FLE. The minimum 10 years of formal education increases the odds of receiving FLE by six folds in India. Above half of the respondents reported that they felt embarrassed in the sessions of FLE irrespective to the sources. Implementation of govt. prog. significantly increases the likelihood of having FLE. Those who received FLE are rated significantly high on the index of contraceptive and SRH knowledge. 28% of unmarried women expressed their desire to receive FLE only from their family members. Thus, this study also recommends to involving these stakeholders in the culturally suited community FLE programmes.

Siblings can play a significant role in shaping adolescents' attitudes and behaviors. Existing studies have mainly used European and European-American samples, neglecting sibling relationships and communication in non-Western contexts. This study fills research gaps by focusing on adolescents in Ghana (mean of 3.3 siblings) and demonstrates that adolescents generally receive similar health information from their siblings as they do from parents, school, friends, and the media. The study finds that: (1) older siblings advocate for sexual abstinence and early pregnancy prevention; (2) 15-19 year old adolescents are more likely to communicate with older siblings, while out-of-school males and rural females are less likely to do so; (3) communication is more likely to occur in same-gender dyads; and (4) siblings’ personal experiences can offer adolescents unique perspectives and learning opportunities that can impact their transition to adulthood. This study's findings call for considering siblings as an important target group in adolescent-related interventions.