Missing Voices: Why Youth Must Be Central to Pakistan’s Family Planning Agenda

Abstract

Pakistan’s government has a decades-old commitment to family planning, but the population indicators show that the progress is far from ideal. The modern contraceptive prevalence rate has been at 24% for a decade while the unmet need for family planning is quite high at 17 percent (1). Population researchers and experts are working to understand the reasons behind this slow and inconsistent progress. One significant yet less discussed factor is the non-inclusion of young people in family planning. Pakistan is currently going through a demographic transition; a significant portion of its population, approximately 60 percent, is below the age of 30 (2). Modern contraceptive prevalence rate drops to six percent for married girls aged 15-19 and 13 percent for married women aged 20-24 years (1). These findings indicate that young people are far behind in their access to family planning information and services. It is imperative for the population sector policymakers to come up with well-structured youth-inclusive family planning programs to ensure that the country has the full support of this crucial segment of its population.

Thus far youth has not received the due attention in policy and practice around family planning even though they represent the largest segment population of Pakistan, they have never received the proportionate attention regarding their sexual and reproductive health (SRH), including information and access to family planning. They come across significant sexual and reproductive health challenges such as limited or no access to necessary information, stigma related to contraceptives use, and a lack of youth-friendly health information and services (3). The conservative culture and traditional taboos around sexuality, and sexual and reproductive health of youth in Pakistan contributes to creating barriers to awareness and service delivery, which consequently results in low modern contraceptive prevalence rate amongst youth (4).