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This briefing paper summarises the state of current knowledge and programming on teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone and identifies some key gaps. It goes on to propose a future research agenda on this issue that could be undertaken by SLRC and supported by Irish Aid under its new five-year strategy for Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the world. Several recent research studies have generated evidence as to why. Drivers of this problem include lack of information, knowledge and skills among girls, their sexual partners and their families; weak institutions and services, such as health, education, social work and justice; poverty and girls’ limited access to assets; widespread sexual violence and exploitation, for which there is both social and legal impunity; and engrained social and gender norms that make girls vulnerable to early sex and pregnancy. …
To date most studies of the impact of school-based sex education have focused either on specific, local interventions or experiences at a national level. In this paper, we use a new cross-country dataset to explore the extent to which laws on sex education affect teenage pregnancy rates in developed countries. We find some evidence that laws mandating sex education in schools are associated with higher rates of teenage fertility. Parental opt out laws may minimise adverse effects of sex education mandates for younger teens. …
This regional report entitled “Adolescent and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Services - Key elements for implementation and scaling up in West and Central Africa” is complementary to the previous regional report on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) and documents, through concrete examples from four West African countries (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Togo), highlighting promising practices, lessons learnt, and proposing key recommendations to be shared with all countries in the region.
This rapid review focuses on identifying evidence and lessons learned on the links between life skills interventions in emergency settings and the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and early marriage and return to education post crisis amongst adolescent girls. It seeks to enable learning from past emergencies to inform the design of effective support to adolescent girls throughout the COVID-19 crisis.
This brief discusses initial learning emerging from the Adaptive approaches to reducing teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone action research project. The project is accompanying three international NGOs - Concern, International Rescue Committee (IRC), and Save the Children - as they trial adaptive approaches to addressing teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone. Key messages: 1) Partners under this action research project are trialling alternative approaches to preventing teenage pregnancy, focusing on social norms change. …
Global investments in girls’ education have been motivated, in part, by an expectation that more-educated women will have smaller and healthier families. However, in many low- and middle-income countries, the timing of school dropout and first birth coincide, resulting in a rapid transition from the role of student to the role of mother for adolescent girls. Despite growing interest in the effects of pregnancy on levels of school dropout, researchers have largely overlooked the potential effect of adolescent childbearing on literacy and numeracy. …
This report examines the trends of sexual and reproductive health behavior over a 9-year period (2008-2017) in the Philippines. The analysis utilizes data from three nationally representative household surveys conducted by The Demographic and Health Surveys Program in 2008, 2013, and 2017. …
This booklet is aimed at helping adolescents better understand important issues in their life related to early and unintended pregnancy (EUP) – including puberty, contraception, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and relationships. The booklet starts by exploring the journey from childhood to adulthood. In this section, the changes that happen in males and females during puberty are described. Next, pregnancy in general is explained. Following this, EUP specifically is detailed, including causes, consequences, and prevention. …
This issue of the African Development Perspectives addresses sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Africa, with the backdrop of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action (PoA), signed by 179 governments twenty-five years ago, in 1994, in Cairo, Egypt, and the Nairobi Summit in November 2019, where delegates will converge to reaffirm the commitments to accelerate the promises made at the 1994 Conference. …
The Adolescent Girls Empowerment Program (AGEP) in rural and urban Zambia aims to build social, health, and economic assets of adolescent girls. A safe spaces component is at the core of AGEP. Girls groups, under the guidance of a female mentor from the same community, provide a safe and supportive learning environment. The meetings are critical in building social assets for vulnerable girls - including friendships, self-esteem, trusting relationships with adults, and social support. …
The National Strategy for the Reduction of Adolescent Pregnancy and Child Marriage (2018-2022) was developed to guide the prioritisation of all evidence-based adolescent pregnancy and child marriage reduction interventions in the country during this period.
Child marriage is being increasingly recognized globally as a fundamental violation of human rights. Child marriages occur globally in varying degrees across countries and regions. South Asia alone accounted for almost half of the total number of child marriages that have occurred globally. Early marriage can lead to serious ramifications such as school drop-out, early pregnancy, maternal morbidity and mortality. …
Adolescent girls in the Dominican Republic are being denied their sexual and reproductive rights, including access to safe abortion. “I Felt Like the World Was Falling Down on Me” documents how authorities have stalled the rollout of a long-awaited sexuality education program, leaving hundreds of thousands of adolescent girls and boys without scientifically accurate information about their health. The country has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). …
The Population Council’s cooperation with Regional Team for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), and Embassy of Sweden, Lusaka (‘the Team’) on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in East and Southern Africa has spanned over a decade, emerging in late 2006 in response to high levels of SGBV in the region, coupled with minimal understanding of how to respond to the issue in the low-resource settings that this region includes. …
