Indian Girls More Likely To Have Sex Before 15

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NEW DELHI – Adolescent girls – in the 15-19 age group – in developing countries like India are more likely than adolescent boys to have sex before they turn 15.

While 3% boys, in the 15-19 age category, had sex before reaching 15 between 2005 and 2010 in India, almost 8% girls in the same age group had become sexually intimate.

Unicef’s “Global Report Card on Adolescents 2012” published in the Lancet said among 15-19 year olds in the developing world (excluding China), 11% girls had sex before the age of 15 against 5% boys. Early sex also resulted in early childbearing, and also increased the risk of HIV infection.

While only 35% adolescent boys in India had comprehensive knowledge of HIV, it was much lower among girls at 19%.

In India, 49,000 male adolescents and 46,000 girls were living with HIV in 2010. Globally, approximately 2.2 million adolescents, aged 10-19, are living with HIV, and most of them do not know their status. In absolute numbers, it works out to 1.3 million and 870,000 adolescent girls and boys, respectively.

Birth rates among Indian adolescents were also very high. About 22% women aged 20-24 years now gave birth before turning 18. Bangladesh, India and Nigeria alone account for one in every three of the world’s adolescent births. The Unicef report, to be announced on Wednesday, says globally each year around 16 million girls, aged 15-19, give birth, accounting for around 11% of all births.

Unicef says early childbearing often results from child marriage. Approximately 95% of adolescent births occur in low and middle-income countries. The only industrialized country among the top 10 nations with the highest number of adolescent births is the US.

More than one in four women in sub-Saharan Africa has given birth before she turned 18. Early marriage is also rampant globally.

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