The adolescent population (between the ages of 10 and 19) covers more than one-fifth of the total population of Bangladesh, which consists of approximately 36 million in total. Currently 52% of the girls get married by the age of 18, and 18% by the age of 15 and the adolescent birth rate is 113 births per 1,000 women. As an essential part of Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH), information sessions in school and internet materials could be highly helpful and reliable for the youngsters.
Current challenges
Adolescents face tremendous challenges to meeting their sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs because of lack of awareness about puberty, sexuality and basic human biological changes. These underlying factors lead to high rates of early pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), sexual violence, limited negotiation skills, forced marriage and high fertility rates.
To better meet the adolescents’ health needs, the government is striving to make progress in the health sector and made significant commitments to SRH in its 2016-2020 five-year plan. However, several issues are still a concern in term of sexual and reproductive health of young females:
• In the National Strategy for Adolescent Health 2017-2030 (NSAH) there is no mention of the third gender and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adolescents in the suggested measures, implementation strategies and particularly in the section on vulnerable adolescents and adolescents in challenging circumstances.
• There is a lack of tailored, age-appropriate SRH programme for younger adolescents (between the ages of 10 and 14) in the strategy. It is crucial to address early adolescents in policies and programmes. Nonetheless, this is the age when gender and sexual norms, values, and attitudes start forming, and many adolescents become sexually active during this period or soon after.
• Among other concerns, an explicit focus on STIs, especially HIV services for adolescents is lacking. According to the reports on ASRH, only 12% of ever-married Bangladeshi adolescents had comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS. Knowledge about other sexually transmitted diseases is far lower than HIV. Also, most programmes focus on reproductive health issues (e.g. family planning, maternal care, and so forth) but neglect sexual health.