Inequalities Faced by Young Women: Addressing SRHR Challenges



Inequalities Faced by Young Women: Addressing SRHR Challenges
  1. Education: The lack of access to quality education has implications for young women and men not only in seeking gainful employment but also seeking SRH services. Education reduces the risk of pregnancy among adolescents and accurate information on sexuality also enables them to make relevant choices.
  2. Poverty: Young women are less likely to own property or control other assets and are often financially dependent on parents, spouses or in-laws. This can limit their ability to seek SRHR services and can also be a cause and consequence of sexual behaviors. Often times, young women are pushed to exchange sex for money, gifts, good grades, and other favors.
  3. Legal Barriers: Young women account for a significant proportion of unsafe abortion procedures. Women under the age of 25 account for almost 60% of unsafe abortion procedures, while women are the age of 30 account for 80%.3  Despite this stark reality, many countries still retain harsh laws on abortion. In most sub-Saharan African countries, legal restrictions on abortion increase the risk of unsafe abortion among young women, particularly in countries where sex education is also restricted on moral grounds. This is compounded in an environment where young women are stigmatized for seeking unsafe abortion following unintended pregnancies. Many of these women are poor and, as a result, cannot access sexual and reproductive health services, including contraception.
  4. Harmful practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Early or Child Marriage: Married adolescents often face greater reproductive health risks than those who are not married4 because of societal expectations to begin childbearing immediately after the marriage. This is further compounded by limited access to contraceptives. Many child brides face the risk of STIs or HIV infection from their husbands who are usually older and may have a longer pre-marital sexual history. In some cases, negotiating condom use is not an option.
  5. Violence against Women (VAW): Young women are especially vulnerable to VAW because it is often committed by someone in a position of authority, like a husband or other intimate partner, teacher, employer or older relative.

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