
Photo with courtesy of http://motherhow.com/teenage-pregnancy-facts-you-should-know/
By Kenneth Simbaya
Partners in Population and Development (PPD) has advised that investing in adolescent girls through educating them, and informing them about their health being in their control is a smart economic move for any nation.
PDD said that the well-being of adolescent girls is a key to eliminate poverty, achieve social justice, stabilize population, and prevent foreseeable humanitarian crisis.
According to PPD if we want to change the world and especially the poorer and developing countries of the south, there is nothing better than investing in adolescent girls who are the major player in reaping the demographic dividend of the country.
“There are close to 600 million girls growing up globally in developing countries,” reads PPD’s statement made available to this reporter on World Population Day which was celebrated on July, 2016.
“Well educated and empowered adolescents girls, will have the tools to reinvest back into their family, community, country and ultimately to the world,” added PPD.
One of the biggest challenges that PPD has been addressing since inception, is the hazardous health status of the adolescent girls. There are almost a high number of child marriages posing a massive demographic threat in most developing countries which leads to high early pregnancies, increasing child mortality rates, unsafe health situation of the young child mother, and a not too healthy family.
Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS) 2015/2016 highlights that, the issue of adolescent fertility is important on both health and social grounds. Children born to very young mothers are at increased risk of sickness and death. […]