EDITORIAL: Observing World Population Day
Yesterday, July 11, 2016 the international community observed the World Population Day. It is a day, which seeks to raise awareness of global population issues, such as family planning, gender equality, poverty, maternal health, girl child education, child marriage, sexually transmitted infections and human rights. In addition, it is to call attention to exploding global population as well as solve the big mistake of completely human fraternity.
The Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) first started world Population Day in 1989. The theme for this year is “Investing in teenage girls.” In his remark to mark the day, the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon said; “Despite significant gains made in reducing poverty and improving opportunity and well-being for many people around the world, hundreds of millions remain desperate for a chance of a better future. Among the least served by previous development initiatives are girls, particularly those in their formative teenage years”.
It is unfortunate that many teenage girls around the world face enormous challenges, even as most are forced into early marriages thereby damaging their future prospects.
Even among girls who stay in school, access to basic information about their health, human rights and reproductive rights can be hard to overcome by, leaving them vulnerable to illness, injury and exploitation. Statistics show that more than 13 million teenage girls around the world are subjected and forced by their families and communities into marriages annually, even as 10 percent of them have initiated sex before the age of 15 while about 3.2 million girls have gone through unsafe abortion which accounts for the second leading cause of death among girls between the ages of 15 and 19. It is estimated that 50 percent of the world’s pregnancies are unintended and 25 percent are unwanted. Every day, approximately 800 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, even as almost all of these maternal deaths occur in developing countries including Nigeria. It is a fact that how well a society treats its women is one of the strongest indicators of its success or failure.
By providing girls with an education, ensuring women to have a voice in family decisions, and providing them with opportunities for economic freedom, we will build stronger and healthy society. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), investments in education and health of women and girls have been linked to higher national productivity, agricultural yield and income, all of which contribute to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In addition, human and environmental health underpins the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations, which seek mainly to eradicate poverty and hunger and ensure environmental sustainability.
The links between population growth and threats to the environment cannot be denied. Human beings living on the earth tend to overlook the obvious facts that an increasing population leads to a significant increase of consumption that causes in increase of waste in the environment.
We call on the authorities to use this World Population Day to rethink our notion of population management. One good starting point is the enforcement of the Child Rights Act, which entitles all children to adequate food, healthcare, shelter, education and skill acquisition before the age of 18 years.
