The World Health Organization ((WHO) is the organization of interest with an underpinning mission statement which “ seeks to publish and disseminate scientifically rigorous public health information of international significance that enables policy-makers, researchers and practitioners to be more effective; it aims to improve health, particularly among disadvantaged populations” (Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2012).
The context of the mission statement is to provide scientifically tested and proven medical services particularly to disadvantaged populations in the world and in this case to the vulnerable girl child susceptible to early sex.
The WHO policy formulation is based on information about early girl child marriage, making it the core issue of discussion in this paper.
The core issue is pregnancy of the girl child leading to adolescent births. A significant number of girl children in poor countries get pregnant because of lack of contraceptives and reproductive health information. That is compounded with the disadvantage that the adolescent girl is not able to refuse sex leading to coerced sex.
Lack of knowledge of how to prevent early pregnancy and other effects including contracting HIV because of engaging in child sex compounds the problem further. The consequences include contraction of HIV and pregnancies which leads to the acquisition of abortion.
Statistical evidence shows that the number of children under the age of 19 giving birth to children is 16 million, with the girls under the age of 15 giving birth to 2 million yearly. Poor countries suffer the most because of lack of education and low use of contraceptives during sex.
Europe, Asia, and Latin America show a 42-60% rate of contraceptives use with Africa showing a low rate of 2-49% for partners in a relationship (World Health Organization,2010).
The underlying significance of the problem is demonstrated in the rising cases of abortion done in unhealthy backgrounds and use of poor crude methods to induce abortion.
The consequences are lasting health problems for the young girl, and sometimes when abortion is unsuccessful, the vulnerability and the impact of long lasting implications of poor health for the young mother and the child. That is in addition to complications experienced by the mother during pregnancy and childbirth.
According to the World Health organization (2012) report, the number of still born children because of child births is high, with the girl child mother susceptible to giving birth to a low weight child. The long term impact includes poor health for the child and the mother, in addition to retarding socio economic development.
In response to the above scenario, the WHO adopted, in May 2011, a number of polices and intervention programs which included the protection of the girl child from early child bearing, provision of reproductive health services and access to contraceptives, and making available and promoting information about reproductive and sexual health to the target population for all countries in the world.
The policies were published in the WHO evidence based guidelines on how to address the reproductive health problems discussed above (World health organization, 2008).
An example of the intervention program and success rates has not been demonstrated, but the guidelines provide the optimism that once the statistics are out, the fatalities will have significantly reduced. That could result into better health, informed public and especially the girl about the consequences of early sex.
References
World Health Organization (2010). Adolescent pregnancy. Web.
World Health Organization (2008). Adolescent Pregnancy. Web.