On March 8, I ♥ Being a Girl together with Girls Decide took part in the TrustLaw Women, Thomson Reuters and Reuters live blogging event to mark the centenary of the International Women's Day since it was celebrated for the first time in 1911.
All over the world, girls and young women continue to experience barriers in life related to fear, stigma, violence, ignorance and cultural and religious beliefs that can have a negative impact on their health and well-being and may be even life-threatening at times.
Lack of access to safe and legal abortion is a barrier for young people in Europe. In Central and Eastern European countries and the Central Asian Republics, sexuality education is absent from most school programmes and many countries in this region experience high adolescent birth rates.
Ensuring girls’ and young women have access to life-saving and life-enhancing sexual and reproductive health services and information is a human rights imperative and essential to tackle gender inequality and ill-health. The failure to provide support to girls and young women to feel empowered to make their own choices around sex and pregnancy can result in unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, unsafe abortion and related morbidity and mortality.
The Girls Decide initiative aims to reduce the risks related to girls’ pregnancy and to improve the health, well-being and development of girls and young women worldwide.
As part of Girls Decide initiative, the youth network of IPPF EN, YSAFE is coordinating
I ♥ being a girl
project which has resulted in a blog where young women are invited to share reflections on their experiences of being a girl.
IPPF EN believes that all persons and young people in particular have the right to give input on comprehensive sexuality education programmes and sexuality-related policies. They should have the right to participate in the development of laws, policies, programmes and services pertaining to their health and well being.
IPPF EN calls upon decision makers, service providers and other actors to support policies, programmes and services that offer a positive approach to girls and young women’s choices around all aspects of sex, sexuality and pregnancy.
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See:
Girls Decide: Stand Up for Choice on Sex and Pregnancy
http://www.ippf.org/en/What-we-do/Adolescents/Girls+Decide.htm
I ♥ Being a Girl
http://iheartbeingagirl.blogspot.com/
The TrustLaw Women's Day 2011 Live
http://trustlawlive.trust.org/Event/International_Womens_Day_2011?Page=0