Guaranteeing Adolescents’ Right to Participate and Make Decisions about their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

The period of adolescence (10-19, with “youth” defined as up to 24)i represents a critical window of opportunity when young people are learning to make independent decisions and forming their own attitudes and beliefs. However, the period of adolescence is also a time of vulnerability and many adolescents experience threats to their sexual reproductive health rights (SRHR).Poor SRHR in adolescence – across both humanitarian and development settings – has both immediate and long-term consequences on health, education, and livelihood outcomes. Globally, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and other international and regional agreements uphold the rights of adolescents, but at national and sub-national levels, laws, policies, and practices often create barriers for adolescents to seek services and information, and supportive policies are rarely implemented in full. The core strategy of adolescent score card tool is to facilitate dialogue between adolescents and service providers in a participatory forum and to strengthen adolescents’ voices to exercise their SRH rights. The adolescent score card tool aims to capture three levels of information from adolescents: the availability of SRHR services for adolescents, adolescents’ satisfaction levels regarding the quality of service delivery (among those who have used the services), and suggestions for improvement of the quality of services. The adolescent score card intervention resulted in improved supply of the SRHR commodities like IFA supplies improved to 96%, sanitary pads to 82%, contraceptive supplies to 39%. In our study area, majority of the adolescents were not aware of the RTIs/STIs. Post intervention the status of RTI/STI services graded as good improved to 29% from 11% and RTI/STI service status of poor grade decreased to 57% from 79%. Counseling on use of IFA increased by 36%, counselling on use of sanitary napkins increased by 35% and counselling on use of contraceptives was increased by 32%. Enabling adolescents to access sexual and reproductive health services enables them to prevent pregnancy, protect themselves against sexually transmitted infections, and make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health. States must guarantee adolescents meaningful participationin the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health programs. This will ensure that the youth perspective is incorporated into such programs and enhance transparency and accountability.