PRESS STATEMENT
World Population Day 11 July
Theme: Focus is on Adolescent Pregnancy
DATE: 11th
July, 2013
A world of 7 billion is both a challenge and an
opportunity with implications on sustainability, urbanization, access to health
services and youth empowerment. The United Nations
estimates that global population will swell to 9 billion by the year 2050.
About 16 million girls under age 18 give birth each year.
Another 3.2 million undergo unsafe abortions. The vast majority – 90 per cent
-- of the pregnant adolescents in the developing world are married. But for far
too many of these girls, pregnancy has little to do with informed choice. Often
it is a consequence of discrimination, rights violations (including child
marriage), inadequate education or sexual coercion.
At least one billion
people around the world do not get enough to eat. A nearly equal amount – 1.4
billion – are overweight, and can suffer from various health problems such as
diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. And more than 200 million women
across the globe have an unmet need for contraception, keeping them from
planning how many children they want to have and when. In addition, women
farmers often lack access to land, credit, and education making it harder for
them to provide for their families. The
U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that if women had the same
access to these services as men, global malnutrition could be reduced by 12 to
17 percent.
Improving schooling for all children and youth, especially
increasing educational among girls and women because population growth combines with poverty and lack of access
to resources search for fuel-wood, food, water and other basic needs
Education for women and man will reduces desired family
size and fertility, social pressures on women to have early and frequent
pregnancies. Together, these steps would result in a gradually declining world
population within a few decades.
When
women are empowered to plan and space their children, they are better able to adapt
to climate change and ensure the survival of their families. In addition,
slowing population growth could help reduce future emissions.
Climate
change is ultimately produced by the pressures placed on the earth’s ecosystem
by humankind’s development efforts
Teenage pregnancies is on the increase in the Central
Regional of Ghana From the year 2010, teenage pregnancies progressed from 12,
064 to 13,059 in 2011, then to 13,780 2013. By Medical Director of the Central
Regional Hospital, Dr. Daniel Asare
Abibimman Foundation, AYICC –Ghana, GCAP-Ghana and IDAY-Ghana, believe
in sex education and raise awareness of the issue of adolescent pregnancy in
the hopes of delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every
childbirth is safe, and every young person’s potential is fulfilled
Kenneth Nana Amoateng
Chief Executive Officer
Abibiman Foundation
