Summary

In this Study Session, you have learned that:

• According to WHO, adolescence is a period of a young person's life between the ages of 10 and 19 years and Young people as those from ages 10-24 years. Adolescents and youth, ages 10 to 24 years constitute over one-quarter of the global population. They face risks as they mature, explore the world around them and develop new capacities.
• Adolescence is a time of experimentation, sexual feeling and increases impulse and vulnerability to physical, psychological and environmental influences so special care is needed.
• Adolescent and youth face reproductive health problems like unwanted pregnancy and too-early pregnancy, sexual violence and unwanted sex, unsafe abortion and STI including HIV/AIDs.
• Reproductive rights are those rights specific to personal decision-making and behaviour in the reproductive sphere, including access to reproductive health information, guidance from a trained professional, and reproductive health services.
• Adolescence is a period of dynamic change representing the transition from childhood to adulthood marked by profound physical, emotional, mental and social changes. Its stages are early adolescence (10-13 years), middle adolescence (14-16 years) and late adolescence (17-24 years).
• Because young people can begin these changes as early as ten years, it is important that they have the skills and information to understand their development very early.