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Around the world, approximately 14 million girls and women under 20 years of age give birth each year.[2] Many of these pregnancies are unwanted and cause serious health risks. Additionally, between two and four and a half million adolescents attempt to have abortions each year.[3]

These numbers speak for themselves. They show that governments must recognize young men and women as sexually active individuals and guarantee their sexual and reproductive rights with specific policies, laws and programs.

I am going to speak about an issue that creates discomfort, that gives rise to intense debate and that, paradoxically, does not receive all the attention it deserves. I am going to speak about the sexual rights of young people, especially the rights of youth under 18 years of age.

Why are young people important?

You might be asking yourselves: Why talk about the sexual rights of adolescent girls and boys? Why not talk about the sexual rights of all people, in a more inclusive manner, instead of limiting it by age? There are three important reasons to do so.

The first reason is that young people tend to be more flexible and more open to changing the way they think and the way they behave. We heard Dr. Esther Vicente explain how rights are constructed on the basis of individual and collective practices. Form this we conclude that the social construction of sexual rights will occur more rapidly if we start with young people.

The second reason has to do with social justice. Young people are especially vulnerable and are disproportionately affected by different social, economic and health problems. Let me mention some figures from real life to support that statement. According to the United Nations Population Fund, 42% of young people live in poverty, on less than two dollars a day.[4] Of the 185 million unemployed people in the world, approximately half are youth,[5] and women aged 15 or younger are the victims of about 50% of sexual assaults globally.[6]

Young people are also more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections. According to estimates by the World Health Organization, globally, two thirds of sexually transmitted infections occur among people under 25 years of age, while half of all new HIV/AIDS infections are to young people. In Latin America, as in other parts of the world, young people face enormous obstacles in accessing the contraceptive methods they need to protect themselves from these types of infections. In the Dominican Republic for example, only 33% of people between 20 and 24 years of age use modern contraceptive methods, while the rate for people between 40 and 44 years of age is 72%.

I could continue to give examples such as these all day, but what I really want to say is that those of us who can bring these issues to light must speak loud and clear. As you know, in most countries, people under 18 do not have the right to vote. This inability to influence political processes negatively affects their interests and is responsible, at least in part, for the kinds of vulnerabilities that I just described. It is exactly for this reason that I believe it is important to get the issue of adolescents’ sexual rights on governments’ political agendas.

The third reason for focusing on young people is that, if we want to ensure our future as a species and, at the same time, build a better, more just and supportive society, it is absolutely necessary that we invest in the development of young people. It is in the interests of society as a whole to give young men and women the information and tools they need to protect themselves and to act in a responsible manner when beginning their sexual lives. Adolescence and youth are special stages in life, formative stages, and the decisions young people make, the goals they set and the opportunities they have can lead them to roads that help them, or the reverse, harm them, and not only harm young people but also their families and society.

The current generation of youth is the largest ever in the history of humanity. Currently there are about 3 billion people under 25 years of age; in other words, approximately half of the world’s population is comprised of young people. Therefore, because of a question of magnitude, of their extensive presence within the human collective, it is important to pay attention to the rights of this group.

In recent decades, those of us defending sexual and reproductive rights have avoided talking about population growth because neo-Malthusian ideas that predominated in the past have been used to justify the denial of individual rights. Concerns about rapid population growth inspired coercive policies that sought to impose the norm of a small family, as has happened in India and China. For this reason, it was very important that during the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in the beginning of the ‘90s we were able to change the paradigm and position rights as the central issue for population policies.

Fifteen years later, and understanding clearly the importance of maintaining and expanding a rights focus, we are in a place that allows us to objectively examine the implications of population growth, without accepting that doing so entails returning to coercive policies. We can now unequivocally say that lower population growth will help to resolve one of the most important challenges we are facing: global climate change and the environmental, social, economic and political problems stemming from this phenomenon. In a recent article, the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Amartya Sen, analyzed the growing cost of food globally and found that although population growth has only a minor impact on the demand for food, a larger population can contribute to climate change and therefore threaten the sustainability of agricultural production.

If we guarantee the sexual rights of young people, if we give them the tools they need to make informed decisions about their sexuality and about the number of children they want to have and when to have them, if we provide education and economic opportunities that allow them to live with dignity, and if we help to avoid situations such as unwanted pregnancies and early parenthood, we will create a more just world and also reduce fertility rates and delay the start of parenthood.

I believe it is obvious how a drop in fertility rates would help to slow population growth, so I won’t belabor the point. The second point, delaying the start of childbearing, is less clear, and so I would like to address it. When a young man or a young woman waits to have his or her first child, it is important because of a phenomenon that demographers call “population momentum,” which refers to the percentage of the population that is of reproductive age. The larger the proportion of the population that is of reproductive age, the greater the population growth in the future, because there is a significant number of young people who will shortly begin to have children. This means that the population will continue to grow even when fertility rates decrease and reach replacement level. What is important then is that the earlier young women and men have children, the faster (and greater) the population growth.

Young People’s Sexual Rights

Sexual rights are increasingly accepted, but the most conservative sectors continue to strongly oppose them. This resistance is even stronger when we are talking about young people's sexual rights. In many countries there is a general agreement that it is necessary to decrease pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections among young people, but when it comes time to find ways to do so, there is no consensus because of general disapproval and denial of young people’s sexual lives, their desires, their different sexual orientations and new types of relationships. This disapproval is also present among young people themselves, because they tend to assimilate the dominant culture.

But the difficulties are even more extensive, because the very idea that youth under age 18 have rights—in fact that human rights in general also apply to young people—is relatively new and was only established internationally in 1989, in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has now been ratified by 191 countries (the only countries that have not ratified it are the United States and Somalia). This convention added a new concept to international law, one with profound implications: the principle of the evolving capacities of the child.

The evolving capacities of the child include his or her physiological ability to reproduce, his or her psychological ability to make informed decisions about counseling and health care, and his or her emotional and social ability to engage in sexual behaviors in accordance with the responsibilities and roles that this entails. An important consequence for adolescent girls includes the possibility of pregnancy, for which they require health services different from those they needed as little girls, including family planning services, prevention of sexually transmitted infections and safe abortion.

The convention emphasizes development and intellectual maturity, the ability to understand complex concepts, to make informed decisions and to understand the possible consequences of their choices. With regards to sexuality, intellectual maturity is generally considered together with emotional or social maturity. It includes, for example, the formation of identity and the ability to decide responsibly and in an informed manner about sexual relations and behaviors.

Adolescents as rights holders, as I said before, is a relatively new concept. On the other hand, the vulnerability of children and their need for care, counseling and protection by parents, communities and the state is widely recognized. The doctrine of evolving capacities of the child manages this double identity of the child in a flexible and contextual manner in order to apply legal rights and protections in accordance with the evolving stages of maturity and development. This framework is useful for promoting the sexual and reproductive rights of young men and women and for building a social milieu where young people are capable of making informed and responsible decisions about their bodies and lives.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, has expressed its concern about the high rates of maternal mortality, unsafe abortion and adolescents’ lack of access to services to protect their sexual health. However, the committee has not offered detailed guidelines with respect to sexual and reproductive health laws and policies and young people consistent with the rights and freedoms established in the convention, and assumed by the State parties that have ratified it.

As discussed in a report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)[7], the question of the age of consent for sexual relations poses several difficulties, especially with respect to establishing a balance between the right to protection and the right to respect the evolving capacities of the child. For example, it is possible that some young people under age 14 are mature enough to make informed decisions about their sexuality, have sexual relations with another person of their own age and evaluate the risks this entails. Others, in contrast, do not have a similar level of maturity. It becomes even more complicated when young people have sex with an adult partner who is in a position of power vis-à-vis the minor.

How can these tensions be resolved? The Committee on the Rights of the Child has stated that the protection of young people must be privileged in the face of possible abuses by adults. In fact, it has urged governments to increase the age of consent to avoid these types of problems. The committee has also recommended that the minimum age for girls and boys to marry be 18 years of age. The Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women has also issued similar recommendations. The assumption behind these recommendations is that it is impossible for boys and girls, regardless of their circumstances, to be sufficiently mature to understand the consequences of marriage.

On the other hand, the above mentioned UNICEF report stated that “the recommendation to fix high minimum ages of both sexual consent and marriage is problematic. If the age of sexual consent coincides with that of marriage and both are set at 18 years, it effectively criminalizes behavior in which large numbers of young people are engaged in societies throughout the world. Furthermore, rendering sexual activity unlawful reduces the possibility of young people receiving the reproductive health care and advice that they need for their protection and safety. In consequence, measures designed to provide protection can have the reverse impact.”[8]

It is also worth stating that young women and men, just like everyone else, are a diverse group. Youth are gay, lesbian and transgender, as well as heterosexual. Youth come from different socio-economic classes and have different levels of education. Youth are sex workers, professionals and unemployed. Youth are married and single. Sexual rights apply to all youth.

IPPF and Young People’s Rights

The principle of evolving capacities of the child was adopted in the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s Declaration of Sexual Rights, which states that “the rights and protections guaranteed to people under age eighteen differ from those of adults, and must take into account the evolving capacities of the individual child to exercise rights on his or her own behalf.”

IPPF started from the premise that people under 18 are rights holders and that during the different stages of infancy, childhood and adolescence certain rights and protections have more or less relevance.

Article 5 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes that the direction and guidance provided by mothers, fathers or other people responsible for the child must be consistent with the child’s capacity to exercise his or her rights for his or her own benefit. The concept of evolving capacities requires a balance between on the one hand, the recognition of children as active agents in their own lives and the right to be respected as citizens, as people and as rights holders with increasing autonomy and, on the other hand, the recognition that at the same time they have the right to protection depending on their degree of vulnerability. The concept recognizes that the level of protection for minors participating in activities that can cause them harm will gradually decrease in accordance with the increase in their evolving capacities.

Societies must create environments where children can reach their optimal capacities and where greater respect is given to their potential to participate in and take responsibility for making decisions about their own lives.

Given that development of the different capacities varies widely, sexual rights require an individualized focus based on demonstration of maturity and consideration of the particular circumstances of the specific girl, boy or adolescent, such as their level of comprehension, activities, physical health or mental state, their relationships with parents or other responsible parties, the power relations among all the people involved, and the nature of the issue in question.

The adoption of the Declaration of Sexual Rights is an important step for IPPF, which will energize our educational activities and our sexual health services for youth. In addition, it will help us strengthen our advocacy activities urging governments to protect, respect and promote the rights of young women and men, especially their right to sex education.

But at IPPF we mean to go even further. We not only recognize and promote young people’s sexual rights, we also take all possible measures to guarantee the effective exercise of those rights. In other words, we’ve gone from merely talking to doing. Every year we provide a total of 15 and a half million sexual and reproductive health services to youth globally. In Latin America and the Caribbean , we provide a total of 5.3 million services to young people. These services include everything from oral contraceptives and condoms to the detection and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS. We also provide gynecological services, sexuality counseling and support to youth who are sexually abused, including psychological services, referrals for legal assistance and abortion services.

For the most part, all these services are provided in clinics or health centers specifically for youth, with preferential fees and specially trained professionals who provide services and respond to their needs. We also work extensively to provide information on sexual and reproductive health issues through our network of peer educators, groups of specially trained youth who organize informational talks with other youth in their communities to share information and help youth take care of themselves. We also recognize the diversity of sexual orientations and implement educational activities to eliminate stigma and discrimination.

The Right to Sex Education

IPPF pays special attention to and actively advocates for the right to education and information about sexuality. For example, our Member Associations in Latin America advocate for comprehensive sexuality education in countries where public schools do not address the issue. They work systematically with politicians and decision makers to ensure that they adopt laws and programs that allow all boys, girls and young people to access the information and education they need to have safe and pleasurable relationships once they begin their sexual lives.

In many countries in the world there are still significant obstacles to young people’s access to appropriate, accurate and science-based sex education. Surprisingly, these obstacles are not limited to less developed countries. For years, one of the richest countries in the world has systematically denied youth this basic right by promoting a sex education model based on moral and religious beliefs that endanger the health of youth and society as a whole.

Under the Bush administration, the United States has dedicated itself to the promotion, not just domestically but internationally, of educational programs that endorse abstinence until marriage as the only safe method of avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections among adolescents.

Various scientific studies have been published, many in prestigious periodicals such as the Journal of Adolescent Health, which have irrefutably proven that programs promoting abstinence are ineffective, do not prevent pregnancy among adolescents, do not delay the start of sexual activity, do not reduce the impact of sexually transmitted infections, and lastly, leave young women and men less prepared for safe, pleasurable and responsible sexual relations.

Unfortunately, we are starting to feel the effects of this situation, in rising rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections among adolescents in the United States. Just three months ago, the Centers for Disease Control reported that one of every four adolescents in the United States has at least one sexually transmitted infection.

These figures are surprising in and of themselves, but they are even more surprising when compared to the data for other developed countries in Europe , where governments promote a model of comprehensive sexuality education and where society is more open and comfortable discussing issues of sexuality, including adolescent sexuality. For example, in the United States, the adolescent pregnancy rate is nine times higher than in Holland and four times higher than in France.[9] In the United States, the abortion rate is eight times higher than in Germany.[10] In the United States, the rate of gonorrhea infections among adolescents is 74 times higher than in Holland or France.[11] It is also paradoxical that in spite of the US government’s efforts to promote abstinence, youth in the United States become sexually active at practically the same age as youth in France, Holland and Germany, and, notably, have more sexual partners than their European counterparts.[12]

In spite of this conclusive evidence, the US government continues to invest about $170 million annually in these programs. In contrast, comprehensive sexuality education receives no financing. And this is worrisome not only for the health of youth in the United States but also for the health of young people in other countries. The Bush administration has been exporting this abstinence model to poor countries where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is wreaking havoc. This is not just an inadequate solution to a serious problem. It is an irresponsible and immoral act.

Conclusions

To conclude, I would like to stress once again the overwhelming importance of establishing public policies, laws and programs that allow young people to exercise their human rights in general and their sexual rights in particular. Respect for and the protection and realization of the rights of young women and men is important not only for them but for society as a whole. By adopting the Declaration of Sexual Rights, IPPF hopes to improve understanding of the implications of human rights as applied to sexuality and to build the political will necessary to ensure these changes occur.

Rights are intertwined with responsibilities. Often adults who are opposed to young people being sexually active talk about responsibility, using this concept in a restrictive way. From this perspective, responsibility means that individual adolescents must avoid any and all types of risk. This discourse  blames the victim, because it places responsibility for the harmful consequences that may occur from exercising their sexuality on the shoulders of individual adolescents to whom opportunities are not being offered for the development of their capacity to make sound judgements.

Because advocates for the rights of adolescents consider it unfair to blame adolescents when they have not been given the information and means necessary to make good decisions, they tend to avoid using the word "responsibility." I believe it would be more constructive to begin a discussion to more clearly define the responsibilities, not only of adolescents but also of fathers and mothers, of society and of governments.

In particular, I believe it is time for us to develop the concept of responsibility to promote the development of girls and boys’ capacities. Their capacity to develop their own value systems, to respect their sexual partners, to evaluate risks, to accept gender equality and more depends to a great extent on the opportunities created by parents, schools and society. We must constantly and tirelessly insist on the responsibility of governments to create these types of opportunities.

[12] Darroch JE et al. Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health: A Developed Country Comparison. New York, NY: The Alan Guttmacher Institute, forthcoming in Family Planning Perspectives.