Adolescence
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© UNICEF/LAO02846/Holmes |
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Young people have little chance for higher education or even work options in Lao PDR |
Young people in our region face a rapidly changing world that is giving rise to exciting opportunities and daunting challenges. Violence and abuse, HIV and AIDS, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, social inequities and poverty are just some of the issues challenging young people today.
- Violence and abuse undermines the health and dignity of children in every country. Some 23% of children surveyed in our region said their parents beat them for ‘doing something wrong’. Children report being sexually and mentally abused in schools and suffer from violence and harassment at the hands of other children.
- HIV epidemics are expanding fast in our region. But many young people remain in the dark about how HIV transmission occurs because of prohibitions against frank discussion about sex and illegal drug use.
- Risky behaviours. Amid rising HIV prevalence, more young people are having sex – often unprotected – at earlier ages, having sex with multiple partners, engaging in commercial or transactional sex and using illicit drugs.
- Economic and social changes profoundly affect young people. Drawn by glamour and money, many young people move to cities – only to become trapped by unemployment, poverty, discrimination and despair. Traffickers lure young people with promises of a better life and then strand them in sometimes horrific circumstances.
- Many adolescents are not in school. Despite the high rates of primary school enrolment, more than 30 per cent of children in our region – mostly girls – do not go on to secondary school. These children are at a serious disadvantage in an increasingly competitive world.
- Human trafficking and commercial sex exploitation are pervasive in our region. About one third of the global trafficking in women and children originates from or occurs in South-East Asia.
