| Abstract |
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Of the total population of 258 million people in Indonesia, 55 million are aged 10-24 years old—22.4% of the total population. Reproductive health trends among adolescents are mixed at best. The age at first marriage has increased over the last 2 decades from 17.0 years in 1991 to 20.1 years in 2015, but there were 48 births per 1000 women aged 15-19 years old in 2012 compared to 49 births in 2015. Data from the Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey (IDHS) in 2012 indicated that 9.5 percent of girls aged 15-19 years old already have children, or are pregnant, up from 8.5 percent in 2007. What progress has occurred among this age group is geographically uneven by province. For example, the percent of 15-19 year olds who already have children or are pregnant is 3.3 percent in West Sumatra and 22.9 percent in West Kalimantan.
The Indonesian government has an ambitious goal to lower the age-specific fertility rate for 15-19 year olds from 49 births to 39 births in the next three years as it works toward the Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) goals advocated by a UNFPA-backed global partnership. An intensive, focused, strategically designed national campaign will be necessary to achieve this goal.
The ability of young people to plan their family composition and timing of pregnancy depends on multiple factors, including knowledge about reproductive health as well as access to reproductive health facilities and commodities. Historically, Indonesian family planning programs have focused exclusively on married couples, but as age of marriage increases and age at sexual debut decreases, more attention to the needs of unmarried youth is essential. In this regard, since 2000, the GOI has made Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) a national priority. Under the present government, elected in 2014, this ARH program is gaining momentum with the purpose of increasing knowledge and awareness among young people regarding reproductive health in order to lower the adolescent fertility rate.
Levels of knowledge about reproductive health and access to reproductive health facilities for young people have not had a meaningful increase since 2000. For example, data from Indonesia Young Adult Reproductive Health Survey (IYARHS 2002, 2007, and 2012) indicated that the percentage of unmarried women age 15-24 years’ old who have adequate knowledge about the menstrual cycle and the fertile period was 29 percent in 2003, 25 percent in 2007, and 30 percent in 2012. Over these same three surveys, the proportion of unmarried women aged 15-24 years old that understands that having sexual intercourse, even only once, could lead to pregnancy, is 49.5 percent, 55,5 percent, and 52 percent, respectively. The same surveys reveal declining exposure among this group over time to information from the mass media about delaying marriage and pregnancy prevention.
While national surveys reveal the scope of the challenges Indonesia faces, they have not been designed to identify the social, cultural and behavioral factors (other than basic knowledge of RH and RH services) underlying these challenges. Furthermore, the ethnic, religious and geographic diversity of the Indonesian public necessitates regionally and locally nuanced approaches to these challenges.
The goals of doing the youth voices research are multi-fold:
1. Generate data that helps us understand how adolescents and young people create meaning and navigate (conflicting) norms and messages around sexuality and gender and how this influences adolescents and young people’s vulnerabilities to poor sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing
2. Understand how they use and negotiate use of SRH services
3. Understand how sexual and gender socialization in early adolescence relates with SRH issues experienced throughout adolescent years and early adulthood
4. Engage key stakeholders in a process that helps them understand this and open up for exploring different solutions than trying to control and restrict (especially female) sexuality
5. Give voice to the quantitative data coming from the GEAS
6. Build compelling cases for advocacy for investing in ASRH education and services available to all adolescents independent of marital status
7. Include a strong voice from young people themselves in advocacy messages
8. Improve our (Rutgers and partners) current ASRHR interventions to better fit with the needs, realities and likes of various groups of young people
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