Information to young vital in curbing population growth, HIV/AIDS – Annan

With over 70,000 teenage girls marrying, nearly 40,000 giving birth, and 6,000 young people contracting HIV/AIDS every day, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today the right to education, information and services for the young was crucial in curbing both population growth and the AIDS pandemic.

“Experience shows that educated women are more likely to marry later, and have healthy and better-educated children, who will pass on these benefits from one generation to the next. Education and information also influence how many children they will have,” Mr. Annan declared in a message marking World Population Day, whose theme this year is “One billion adolescents: the right to health, information and services."

Noting that half of all girls in some countries are married before the age of 18, often resulting in early childbearing that poses serious health risks to both mother and child, he added: “If a woman were to wait until age 23, instead of age 18, to have her first child, that alone could reduce the momentum in population growth by over 40 per cent.”

Stressing the vital importance of information and services to the war on AIDS and the broader quest for good health, Mr. Annan declared: “Young people should know how the HIV virus is transmitted, and how to protect themselves from infection. This is important everywhere but is absolutely critical in countries where infection rates are already high or quickly rising.

“Reproductive health services and factual information about reproductive health will also help young people to avoid risky behaviour, unwanted pregnancy and poor health in general,” he said, adding: “The decisions these young people make will shape our world and the prospects of future generations.”

The Executive Director of UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, stressed that while every young person had the right to education and health, “far too many young people are deprived of schooling and adequate health care, and the consequences are devastating.”

Noting that each day over 70,000 teenage girls are married, many against their will, and nearly 40,000 give birth, she added: “For these young women, this means an incomplete education, limited opportunities and serious health risks. Assisting girls to complete secondary schooling and delay marriage and childbirth can help break the cycle of poor health, illiteracy and poverty.”

Mr. Obaid said HIV/AIDS statistics alone -- half of all new infections occur among young people with 6,000 newly infected each day -- demonstrated the need for greater education, information and services.

“By educating, empowering and mobilizing young people, we can turn the AIDS epidemic around,” she declared.

For his part, the President of the UN General Assembly, Jan Kavan of the Czech Republic, said young people should be provided the support they need to make active decisions about the timing and spacing of their children as well as being fully informed on the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in order to significantly slow transmission rates of HIV/AIDS.

“I call on Member States today to ensure that adolescents are not deprived of their right to health-care services and information,” he added.