The spotlight on adolescent pregnancy, the theme for this years’ World Population day on July 11 is a validation of the importance and well being of young people the world over. With teenage pregnancies being a reality for numerous young people and the resulting impacts having far reaching consequences on their reproductive health, mental and emotional well being, the theme and its resulting buzz would atleast lead to creating awareness on how young people are at risk due to the nature of silence and social taboos. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), cases of teenage pregnancy are increasing in an alarming rate with approximately 16 million girls aged 15-19 giving birth each year, which leads to serious complications during pregnancy as well as after child birth and many resulting in death, especially in the developing countries. The risks of teen pregnancy are manifold as an adolescent body is not suitable for pregnancy and involves in the majority of cases, young people resorting to unsafe techniques to abort to stop further pregnancies. But even as Governments on their part make laws that aim to ensure that adolescents are protected from early marriages by making 18 years as the eligible point for legal marriages, the reality is that many under-age marriages do take place while pre marital sex among teenagers is very much in practice in Manipur too. The spectacle of various moral vigilante groups going on their ‘social drives’ of rounding up young people from restaurants and other public places in the state is one indicator of the nature of knee jerk reactions towards young people and their sexual behaviour. What is not considered at length is what drives young people to find solace in dark interiors and isolated areas where there are risks in terms of the safety of girls as proved many times over by cases of sexual assault and rape that have taken place.
When young couples get pregnant, the fear of parental action and social scrutiny often leads them to access unsafe practices to terminate their pregnancies. With abortions still being illegal in the country and hence, a means to be used outside the public domain, many young girls end up going to quacks or unqualified medical practitioners. Once their pregnancies are terminated, teenage girls who to begin with have had no access to correct information with regard to their pregnancies often end up hiding not only their pregnancies but cover up the fact that they have had abortions done. In doing so, they forego post abortion care to let their bodies heal. The lack of adequate information and awareness to young people on one hand and the profusion of advertisements on ways to prevent pregnancies in various mediums means that young people today are more prone to throwing caution to the wind by using medications to prevent pregnancies like the i-pill, pegged as an effective contraceptive measure that needs to be taken within a certain time span of unprotected sex. What is not realized or being seen are the after effects and harms of popping i-pills and what it might entail for young women who use it over an extended period of time, over and above the fact that i-pills do not ensure protection from the risk of HIV infection or transmission.
The vulnerability of young girls to sexual abuse and unwanted pregnancies is prevalent in societies that are plagued by poor development and various forms of conflict including armed conflict. The lack of facilities for proper education and safety mechanisms make young girls vulnerable to be trafficked or to be coerced by existing conditions to take up sex work. The recent media stories citing the medical examination reports of the 15 girls rescued from a ‘children home’ in Jaipur is proof that children caught in the trafficking net are subjected to sexual torture and abuse to coerce them into silence. What is not talked abut or discussed about at length is that girls and teens who are inducted as child soldiers run the equal risk of being sexually exploited in armed environments where males outnumber women, where sex would be required and which naturally, exist out of the bounds of public scrutiny. The fact is that reproductive health is not talked about or encouraged at all in our society. At the most, adolescent health is a topic that is confined to a short chapter in biology textbooks in high school, which in itself is skimmed through in the class-rooms. Mindsets would have to change if positive steps are to be taken to address the reality of adolescent pregnancies to ensure the well being of young people.