Pregnancy as a Policy Failure: Why the World Is Still Failing Adolescent Girls -By Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Each year, millions of girls around the world become pregnant well before they are legallydeemed adults. According to global health statistics, adolescent pregnancy remains one of the most permanent challenges facing both developing and developed societies. It is often said that teenage pregnancy are of health reasons, cultural problems or individual mistakes. Yet this framing misses the underlying truth: teen pregnancy is a  down right policy failure. Behind each teenage pregnancy lies a network of structural inequality poverty, sexual discrimination, education without rights or protections in law. When a girl has her first child at fifteen, it is rarely because she makes one decision. It is likely the result of systems that have failed to protect her long before then. First, many governments still fail to give young people a full sexual and reproductive health education. In various countries, topics related to sexuality remain politically controversial or culturally off limits altogether. As a result, adolescents grow up with inaccurate information about their bodies, contraception or the consent to be found in courts. What people do not know is not by chance; it is often the result of policy choices made according to ideology rather than evidence. When society refuses to teach young about reproductive health, it should hardly be surprised if they come to harm. Second, access to reproductive health services for young people still remains highly uneven. In many areas, teenagers encounter legal, economic or social barriers as they seek contraceptive advice or drugs. Clinics may need parental consent, services authenticateonly in urban areas, or shame might stop a young woman from looking for help. “Youth friendly” Reproductive Health Care is at best a kind of privatization for many young people. Policies that do not assure discreet servicing and counseling for teens are really leaving women unattended.

Thirdly, gender inequality still plays a decisive role. Adolescent pregnancies are closely related to child marriage, sexual violence, and unequal power relationships among girls and boys. In many communities, girls have no control over their own bodies or future. When girls lack autonomy and protection, then pregnancy is not merely one particular type of serious health problem or misfortune. Instead it becomes an expression for the whole systemic gender that wrong.

Girls of early marriages and limited opportunities, whose families are economically weak, have a much higher likelihood of getting pregnant. Limited access both to education (especially for girls) and health care deprives already poor communities of their means for development; causing early motherhood to be both result as well as cause in such poverty cycles only worsens things. Many girls are made to leave their studies as soon as they become pregnant and this permanently reduces their future opportunities.

Thus what started out as merely an absence of adequate public policies is transformed into lifelong obstacles to equal opportunity. It is not only that the single girl who gets pregnant suffers, but even entire communities pay for policies which discriminate against girls.

However, in spite of years of international commitment, the pace of progress is still largely uneven. Governments have promised to respect women’s and girls’ rights through such global frameworks as the Sustainable Development Goals and international human rights conventions. These commitments recognize that girls should receive education freely, maintain their health, and have control over their own bodies. Yet while promising enough in itself-commitments does nothing: without practical policies, adequate funds, genuine political willfulness and administrative setting is likely to take effort away from these priorities.

It’s more than just running awareness campaigns when it comes to preventing teenage pregnancy. Because that needs structural change. Governments must invest in full and accurate sexuality education, so that adolescents have knowledge and key skills like making decisions out of their own head. Health systems mus provide reproductive services that are confidential and accessible, but have been adapted to deal with adolescents. Legal frameworks should protect girls from early marriage, sexual violence and discrimination. And mainly policies should tackle at the source of these inqualities poverty, gender based discrimination, social exclusion that first create risk for girls. The international community must also play a role. In policy agendas and budgets, the development agencies and international organizations specializing on global health must make adolescents their priority. A worthwhile investment for any society is to support the education of girls, strengthen its health systems, and try to empower young women economically. After all, such actions are among the most profitable. Ultimately, adolescent pregnancy can hardly be seen as an inevitable social issue. It is a result of policy choices. When governments shirk their responsibilities in one area or another, consequences are disproportionately felt by most vulnerable members of society. The world often talks about empowering girls as a moral imperative. But empowerment cannot exist without protection. While millions of girls remain tied to early pregnancy by a neglectful system, the global commitment to gender equality remains incomplete. Teenage pregnancies are not just personalties; they also test political priorities. For far too many girls, the world is still failing that test.