Adolescence

Yet other initiatives against child marriage take a legalroute. In Ethiopia, for example, the organization PathfinderInternational takes action against proposed child marriagesthat come to its notice, employing a network of localpartners to try to persuade the parents concerned not togo ahead. If this strategy is unsuccessful, the organizationjoins with the Ethiopian Women Lawyers’ Association inlaunching legal action aimed at stopping the ceremony. 58Initiatives to counter violence and sexual abuse cannotconfine themselves to legal protection. Much of the sexualviolence experienced by adolescent girls is at the handsof their male partner and may not therefore come to thenotice of the police or other authorities. In addition, takingpunitive legal action without addressing the underlyingcauses of the violence may have unintended consequences,such as pushing the problem further underground.TECHNOLOGYYoung people, mobile phones and the rights of adolescentsFor this reason it is essential to take steps to raise theawareness of boys and men about gender relations andpower. Program H, developed by four Latin Americannon-governmental organizations, trains facilitators tohelp young men consider the drawbacks attached to traditionalgender roles and the unhealthy behaviour attachedto them. The aim of the programme is to foster moreequitable relationships between men and women, and anevaluation of its effects in Brazil indicated that it had beensuccessful in encouraging such gender-equitable behavbyGraham Brown,Co-founder, mobileYouthWith only five years left to meet the MillenniumDevelopment Goals, much remains to be done toensure equitable access to technological advancesin underserved and hard-to-reach communities, especiallyamong young people. Working at mobileYouth,I have seen how adolescents are using mobile technologyin new and groundbreaking ways. Emergingmarkets dominate the growth of this technology.Alongside the throng of street urchins and trinketsellers in Chennai, India – to take just one example– local schoolchildren surround a makeshift stall. Youmight mistake it for an ice cream vendor, but this stallis actually selling mobile phones. In a country wherethe average gross domestic product per capita isaround $225 a month and Internet access via personalcomputers (PCs) is the exception, it is no coincidencethat youth (defined here as those aged 5–29) havegravitated towards mobile phones, which cost as littleas $10 and offer call rates that approach zero.Three of the five markets with the highest numbersof mobile accounts among young people are developingcountries: Brazil, China and India (Japan andthe United States are the other two). By 2012,the number of subscribers below the age of 30 inSouth Asia is projected to rise by 30 per cent, to380 million, sub-Saharan Africa is expected to have108 million subscribers under 30, and Latin America,188 million. This increased connectivity offers anopportunity for young people to access knowledgeand fulfil their right to information.Although it was long thought that low-cost laptopswould unlock the world of cheap mass communicationsfor youth in developing markets, the mobilephone has become the de facto access channelto the Internet in places where there is low PCpenetration. In South Africa, for example, mobilephone subscriptions among youth outstrip PCownership by as much as 123 per cent.Back in 1996, nobody imagined that Short MessageService (SMS), a format that limits messages to 160characters, could be of any use apart from receivinga simple test signal from your mobile carrier. Howwrong we were. By experimenting with and exploitingthe medium, young people evolved the formatbefore returning it to the commercial world. Whilewe struggled to conceive of a successor to SMS,investing heavily in picture messaging (MMS) andsimilar services, youth once again arrived at theanswer without industry intervention. They adopted,adapted and converted services originally intendedfor business – such as BlackBerry Messenger – intotheir own medium, not only to communicate amongthemselves but also to advance social campaigns.Young people are keen to take up new contentformats, with adolescents in particular havingthe time to explore and exploit new technologies.SMS, in turn, is being challenged by mobile InstantMessaging (IM), which is becoming the platformof choice owing to the increasing number of users,36THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2011