Assignment 1B - Improving the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent women in Mexico

Aim

Provide comprehensive education on sexual and reproductive health, rights and gender equality to a 100 adolescent women of marginalized areas in Mexico City in 2011.

Background summary

Sexual and reproductive health and rights of adolescents in Mexico is a key issue in the young people’s human rights debate. However, despite the efforts and commitments that the Mexican government has made to protect and promote these rights, in practice this has not happened. For instance, some local governments have failed to provide comprehensive sex education to adolescents by yielding to pressure from conservative groups. Furthermore, criminalization of abortion in various states of the country leads thousands of young women to undergo illegal abortions endangering their health and their life.

Adolescent women are particularly vulnerable for several reasons. First of all, poverty forces many young women to start working at an early age to support their families instead of going to school. Or if they go to school, it is harder for disadvantaged teenagers to access quality education. This situation also prevents them from accessing quality health services. The lack of objective information is another problem because although they know about contraceptive methods, they often don’t know how to use them. Also, their access to these methods is limited. Besides, they have no information about their sexual and reproductive rights. Finally, gender inequality put adolescent women at a higher risk because they are frequently unable to negotiate with their male partners about safe sex practices. Moreover, traditional gender roles and stereotypes prevent them from exercising their sexuality in a healthy and responsible way.

All this negatively affects the sexual and reproductive health of teenage girls because they are more likely to become pregnant and consequently, undergo unsafe abortions increasing the rates of maternal death in adolescents. They are also more likely to drop out of school and they are at higher risk of getting a sexually transmitted infection, including HIV.

According to UNICEF, in 2009, Mexico had a total of 12.8 million adolescents between 12 and 17 years old, of which 6.3 were women and 6.5 men; 55.2% of these adolescents are poor. Nearly half a million of Mexican women under the age of 20 gave birth in 2005. The same year, there were 144,670 cases of adolescents with a child or a first pregnancy between 12 and 18 years who have not completed their basic education.

Given these facts, this project aims to bridge the gap between what adolescent women in Mexico actually know about their sexual and reproductive health and rights, and what they need to know in order to exercise their sexuality in a responsible and satisfying way while having the freedom to plan when and how often to have children. It will also incorporate the gender equality perspective as a key factor to improve the sexual and reproductive health of teenage girls.

Objectives

1) Develop and facilitate a 20 hour workshop to 100 marginalized teenage girls in Mexico City to provide them comprehensive education on sexual and reproductive health, rights and gender equality from April till June, 2011.

2) Develop a pre and post evaluation instrument that will be applied before and after the workshop, respectively, to asses the impact of the project. A follow-up will be carried out after three months, from October till December 2011.

3) Increase by 70% the beneficiaries' knowledge about sexual and reproductive health, rights, and gender equality.

4) Increase by 70% the use of contraceptive methos among the beneficiaties of the project.

Challenges

The fist challenge to overcome is to get the necessary funding to carry out this project. Although it is expected to be a pilot project that will be evaluated before scaling it up, it is important to have a clear action plan to fulfil it.

Another challenge is the community’s response to the topics that will be addressed. Even though many people acknowledges the importance of improving the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent women, this does not necessarily mean that they will be comfortable with the information that will be provided because there are still many taboos regarding adolescents’ sexuality.

Choosing the right people to work with is fundamental. Although we will be relying on the support of volunteers, the people that will be working to develop the material for the project (booklet, handbook, etc.) need to know about these topics.