She was speaking as chief guest at the launching ceremony of the State of the World Population Report, 2003 - the flagship publication of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) - here on Wednesday.
Begum Musharraf said at present, 33 per cent of the total population of the country comprised adolescents that was set to increase in future and should be taken as a wake-up call by the policy-makers. She said as per government statistics, every year three million people were added to the country’s population that, if not managed, could have serious repercussions on health and education sector.
She further said every day eight to 10 women were dying due to pregnancy related complications, and that too in their young ages. The country needs to embark upon an extensive counselling of its adolescents on health issues along with their other requirements, she said.
According to the report, some 1.2 billion people - one person in five - are between ages 10 and 19, the largest number of adolescents in the history of the world. Half of them are poor; one in four lives in extreme poverty, on less than $1 a day.
The report, subtitled, “Making 1 Billion Count: Investing in Adolescents’ Health and Rights” examines their condition in the context of changing social norms and lifestyles, including weakening of family support systems, amid globalization and urbanisation.
In developing countries, some 82 million girls, now between ages 10 and 17, will marry before their 18th birthday, disrupting their education and limiting their opportunities. Some 14 million teenagers, married and unmarried, give birth each year; many face serious pregnancy-related illnesses, and at least 5 million undergo unsafe abortion. Those aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely as women in their 20s to die in childbirth. But according to the report, unmet need for family planning among adolescents is twice as high as among the adult population.
While early marriage persists in many poor countries, the trend elsewhere is towards late marriage.
Poverty, unequal power relations and social norms in many countries make it hard for many girls and young women to refuse unwanted relations, especially with older partners, or to protect themselves against pregnancy or infection. HIV/AIDS has become a disease of the young, the report stresses, fuelled by poverty, gender inequality and a severe lack of information and services for prevention. Half of all new HIV infections, and at least a third of more than 333 million new cases of curable sexually transmitted infections each year, occur in people aged 15 to 24.
Earlier, Dr Olivier Brasseur, Country Representative UNFPA in Pakistan, said investing in the well-being and ensuring the participation of the world’s largest youth generation will yield benefits for generations to come.