Comments
The description of this priority measure contains a number of qualifications that cannot be taken for granted (for example, regarding “comprehensive, timely, good-quality sexual health and reproductive health programmes for adolescents and young people, including youth-friendly sexual health and reproductive health services with a gender, human rights, intergenerational and intercultural perspective”), and that can be difficult to measure with existing sources and conventional methodologies. One possibility is to use the concept of “friendly services” as benchmarks and quantify their care, or even rate their quality. Consequently, the sources used for monitoring must take this complexity into account, as well as the technical details of indicators 2 and 3, which may look complex at first sight, but are resolved for practical purposes by specialized surveys such as demographic and health surveys (DHS) and international reproductive health surveys. Given the high indices of inequality in early reproduction patterns and in adequate and timely contraceptive protection, the indicators must be broken down at least by gender and by socioeconomic, rural-urban and ethnic status.
Possible lines of action
1. Adopt specific national legislation, with the appropriate regulations and protocols, to protect universal access for adolescents and young people to sexual and reproductive health services. 2. Adopt specific national legislation to guarantee exercise of the sexual and reproductive rights of adolescents and young people. 3. Create or strengthen adolescent health programmes, with an explicit component of sexual and reproductive health, in ministries and secretariats of health. 4. Guarantee regular budget funding as needed for sexual and reproductive health services and programmes for adolescents and young people. 5. Establish the physical, institutional and operational infrastructure for sexual and reproductive health services and programmes targeted especially at adolescents. 6. Institute health check-ups for adolescents, including a sexual and reproductive health component. 7. Train specialists in sexual and reproductive health care for adolescents and young people and in providing them with counselling on these issues. 8. Define and implement youth- and adolescent- friendly protocols in all public and private health services. 9. Define and implement protocols for violence prevention, detection and treatment, with an emphasis on sexual violence, in care for young people.
Related instruments, forums and mechanisms
Millennium Development Goals, target 5B.
Sustainable Development Goal, targets 3.7 (“By 2030 ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes”) and target 5.6 (“Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences”).
