World Population day is being observed on July 11 every year worldwide in order to create awareness among the people about the increasing population in the world that has become a common concern globally.
Like every year this year also a theme has been decided for World Population Day 2013, which focuses on Adolescent Pregnancy which has emerged as one of the major concern at present.
According to UNFPA, the total population of girls across World is over 60 millions of which over 500 million belongs to the developing countries. The cases of teenage pregnancy is increasing in an alarming rate with approx. 16 million girls aged 15-19 giving birth each year, which leads to serious complication during pregnancy as well as after child birth and results in death especially in the developing countries.
The major causes of adolescent pregnancy are poverty, gender inequality, child marriage, forced marriage, lack of education, power imbalances between adolescent girls and their male partners, and inadequate rights to prohibit such practices.
To curb the cases of adolescent pregnancy, an individual effort is not sufficient and hence to bring about global attention in this issue this year's World Population Day theme is focused to teenage pregnancy. A combined effort of nations, communities and individuals towards this serious problem is the only possible way to stop adolescent pregnancy. Moreover, firm laws need to be made and enforced in every country that raise the age of marriage to 18. In addition to that, rights against child marriage and to prevent child marriage should me made stronger. Providing sex-education to adolescents and youth is also important to avoid such cases.
Adolescents and youth must be provided with age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education to develop the knowledge and skills they need to protect their health throughout their lives. However, education and information are not enough. Good quality reproductive health services must also be readily available in order for adolescents to make informed choices and be healthy.
Adolescent pregnancy is a serious problem today but this can be reduced by joint efforts of government as well as society by creating proper awareness about the possible consequences and complications about early pregnancy.
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