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Sharing Five Years of
Findings in India
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| According to
India’s most recent census, 30 percent of India’s
population, or 315 to 330 million people, are between the
ages of 10 and 24. |
"Behaviors formed now, in
adolescence, will determine the health of this generation as adults, as
well as the health and future of India,” says Saroj Pachauri, director
of the Population Council’s South and East Asia region. “That’s why it
is vital to know what information and services adolescents need most and
the most effective ways to meet their needs. We also must recognize that
the needs of a married 16-year-old living in rural poverty and those of
a single 20-year-old earning the minimum wage in Mumbai are radically
different, but equally important.”To that end, the Council’s
India office organized “Programming for Young People: New Evidence on
Young People’s Situation and Needs,” a two-day meeting held in New Delhi
in October to discuss findings from ten ongoing and completed studies.
The conference, which generated considerable news coverage, drew an
audience of more than 75 representatives from governments and from
nongovernmental and multilateral organizations, as well as researchers
and development practitioners.
Much of the research
touched on the lives and circumstances of female adolescents: how to
help them build social assets and livelihood skills; how to foster
safety and autonomy in their sexual experiences; how to respond
effectively to the special and often overlooked problems of married
adolescents and the consequences of early marriage; how to help single
and married young women address the power differential in sexual
relations; and more. The presentations included new findings and an
overview of significant studies that the Population Council and partner
organizations in India have conducted over the past five years.
Widespread media coverage
focused mainly on new studies relating to premarital sexual experience
in India (less than 10 percent of young women and 15 to 30 percent of
young men reported having engaged in premarital sex), on sexual
harassment in the workplace, and on coercive sex within marriage. The
Hindu, The Times of India, The Statesman, The Tribune,
Amar Ujala (a
Hindi daily), and The Asian Age all covered the conference.
Parents’ expectations,
perspectives, and changing attitudes about opportunities for girls and
boys and their vulnerabilities were also presented in two studies.
“Parents and families
influence young people’s lives more than anyone else—what they can and
cannot do, how much schooling they receive, the timing of marriage, how
much they know about sexual matters—yet they tend to be forgotten in
programs that seek to address the needs of young people,” says Shireen
Jejeebhoy, Council senior program associate and coauthor of two of the
studies. “Our research documents the extent of this intergenerational
gap and argues for ways of improving parent– child communication and
interaction.”
S. Jalaja, India’s
Additional Secretary of Health and Family Welfare, and Syeda Hameed,
member of the government’s Planning Commission, opened the conference
with keynote addresses. Sessions were moderated by representatives of
the United Nations Population Fund, the Population Foundation of India,
the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the International
Planned Parenthood Federation, Prerana, and the Government of India, and
by Ragui Assaad, director of the Council’s West Asia and North Africa
region.
Partner research organizations taking part
in the meeting included the Child in Need Institute, the Deepak
Charitable Trust, the International Institute for Population Sciences,
the KEM Hospital Research Centre, and the Self-employed Women’s
Association. Funding for the conference was provided by the Council’s
Transitions to Adulthood Program, which is supported by the UK
Department for International Development and a number of private
foundations and multilateral organizations.
(Return to issue contents)
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