Adolescents

1
Adolescents Young People in Emergency
Transition Situations

• Cecile Mazzacurati
• UNFPA, Humanitarian Response Branch
• 21 February 2012

2
Who are adolescents young people?
UN definitions Children under 18 Adolescents
10 to 19 Youth 15 to 24 Young people 10 to 24
A transition phase between childhoold and
adulthood but perceptions and definitions vary
depending on local realities, culture and
beliefs.
3
Who are adolescents young people?
Not a homogenous group!

• Younger (10-14) / older (15-19) adolescents
• Girls/boys, young women/young men
• "Youth programming" not always attentive to these
  differences tendency to address  youth  as a
  homogeneous group
• Targeted strategies required to reach out to
  sub-groups
• Younger adolescent girls, for instance, have been
  systematically neglected in programming
  international efforts to prioritize them in
  recent years

4
Why prioritize adolescents and young people
during emergencies?

• Demographic imperative
• Today we have the largest generation of young
  people the world has ever known
• Children and adolescents (18) represent appr.
  47 of UNHCRs persons of concern (11 of these
  lt 5 yrs)
• Sierra Leone 63 of the population lt 25 yrs old
  (2002)
• Northern Uganda 65 of Sudanese refugees lt 25
  yrs old (2005)

UNHCR statistical yearbook 2010
5
Why prioritize adolescents and young people
during emergencies?

• Increased vulnerabilities due to
• Breakdown of social and cultural systems
• Exposure to violence and chaos
• Personal traumas such as the loss of family
  members, loss of protection mechanisms
• Disruption of school and friendships
• Absence of role models

6
Adolescents are more vulnerable to SRH threats
during emergencies

• Lack of basic information on sexual and
  reproductive health
• Disruption of health services, or impossibility
  of access
• Early sexual initiation
• Early and unwanted pregnancies, leading to unsafe
  abortion or teen parenthood
• Higher risk of contracting STIs and HIV
• Gender-based violence, including family violence
• Accrued risks of sexual violence (rape, sex
  slaves, bush wives, survival sex)
• Recrudescence or apparition of harmful practices
  (trafficking, early marriage, FGM)
• Substance abuse and boredom

7
Why prioritize adolescents and young people
during emergencies?

• Tremendous capacities resilience
• Energy, dynamism
• Idealism
• Willingness to support the recovery of their
  communities
• a valuable resource for their own community,
• and for the humanitarian community

8
Challenges

• Data
• Lack of sex- and age-disaggregated data (SADD)
  collection and analysis
• Lack of global agreement on age categories that
  should be used to gather SADD
• Prioritization
• Age is recognized by the IASC as a
  cross-cutting issue, but low priority is given to
  it
• age is not systematically addressed by Flash/CAP
• no age-focus in CERF live-saving criteria
• Lack of funding
•  

9
Challenges

• Coordination
• No formal coordination platform to support the
  adoption of an "age lense" through cluster
  approach
• Technical
• Lack of knowledge and operational guidance on
  "how to" integrate adolescents/youth/age in
  cluster work
• Lack of methodology to support "youth
  participation" 
•  

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Challenges

• Existing experience in youth programming in the
  field
• Health general health, reproductive health,
  mental health
• Education formal, non-formal, informal
• Employment livelihoods
• But often siloed -- what has been demonstrated to
  work is
• Multi-sectoral approaches, looking at young
  peoples needs more holistically
• Life-cycle lens, looking at evolving capabilities
  and needs through the life-cycle
• Inter-generational approaches working with
  parents, caregivers, community members

11
Opportunities foundations in place for acting
for adolescents young people

• Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
• Machel Study (1996)
• ICPD (1994)
• Security Council Resolution 1325
• Security Council Resolution 1612

12
Opportunities some guidance exists

• Advocacy tools
• Will You Listen? Young Voices from Conflict Zones
  (Report)
• YOUTH ZONES Voices from emergencies (Advocacy
  video, www.youthzones.org)
• Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Toolkit
  for Humanitarian Settings (for RH managers and
  humanitarian prog managers)
• Y-PEER manual on peer education on SRH in
  emergencies

13
Opportunities there is momentum

• Youth are one of the Secretary Generals key
  priorities for his second term
• Growing recognition that adolescents and young
  people need much stronger attention in emergency,
  transition, recovery and peacebuilding

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What can be done immediately?

• Advocate for needs of specific groups (adolescent
  girls, older women, etc.)
• Support clusters in looking at varying needs
  through life-cycle and targeting their activities
  as a consequence
• Ensure appeal narratives and projects take
  various age groups into consideration

15
What is needed longer term?

• Expand the Gender Marker so it includes a
  stronger focus on age
• Develop technical guidance for clusters on age
  and gender
• Form a coordination platform to carry this work
  forward
• Integrating age into gender work
• will make gender mainstreaming more effective!

16
Thank you!