The report, for example, identifies sub-Saharan Africa as the most challenging place for an adolescent to live. The adolescent population of the region is still growing, and it is projected to have the greatest number of adolescents in the world by 2050. But only half the children in sub-Saharan Africa complete primary school and youth employment is low.

Progress for Children: A Report Card on Adolescents highlights other alarming consequences of the benefits of progress not being equally shared among the total of 1.2 billion adolescents—defined by the United Nations as between the ages of 10 and 19—now living in all the regions of the world.

“The disadvantages of poverty, social status, gender or disability prevent millions of adolescents from realizing their rights to quality education, health care, protection and participation,” said UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Geeta Rao Gupta. “This comprehensive report card strengthens our understanding of the problems facing the poorest and most disadvantaged adolescents. It is time to attend to their needs; they must not be left behind.”

The report points to a significant need for improved investment in all aspects of adolescents’ lives and well-being—even in their struggle for survival. Each year, 1.4 million adolescents die from road traffic injuries, childbirth complications, suicide, AIDS, violence and other causes. In some Latin American countries, more adolescent boys die as a result of homicide than from road traffic injuries or suicide.  In Africa, complications in pregnancy and childbirth are the top cause of death for girls aged 15 to 19.

Children entering adolescence are increasingly at risk of violence—a shift from early childhood when disease and nutrition are the major threats. Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to violence in marriage. In a survey in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 70 percent of girls aged 15 to 19 who had been married said they experienced violence at the hands of a current or former partner or spouse.

Adolescents, particularly girls, are often forced to abandon childhood and take on adult roles before they are ready, limiting their opportunities to learn and grown, and placing their health and safety at risk. The report says that over a third of women aged 20 to 24 in developing countries excluding China were married or in a union by the age of 18 with about one third of these being married by age 15.

Adolescent birth rates are relatively high in Latin America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa, the report says. In Niger, half of young women aged 20 to 24 gave birth before the age of 18.

Globally, 90 percent of children of primary school age are enrolled in primary schools and secondary education systems have expanded in many countries. Secondary school enrollment however remains low in the developing world, especially in Africa and Asia. Many pupils of secondary school age are in primary schools. Sub-Saharan Africa has the worst secondary education indicators of any region.

Some 71 million children of lower secondary school age worldwide are not in school and 127 million youth between 15 and 24 are illiterate – the vast majority in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The report says significant efforts in advocacy, programs and policy are needed to realize the rights of all adolescents. Adolescence is a critical stage of childhood at which the right investment can break the poverty cycle and result in social, economic and political benefits for adolescents, communities and nations.

But the report also notes that adolescents should be recognized as real agents of change in their communities. Programs and policies, while protecting adolescents as children, must acknowledge their capacity for creativity, innovation and energy to solve their problems.

Full Report: Progress for Children: A Report Card on Adolescents [PDF]

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Special Note: Salesian Missions supports programs throughout Africa that empower at-risk adolescents by providing education and opportunity. Learn more about programs in Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

The post UNICEF: Millions of Adolescents Falling Behind, Especially in Africa first appeared on MissionNewswire.

As it released its Global Employment Trends for Youth: 2011 Update, the International Labor Organization (ILO) notes that the recent global economic crisis led to a “substantial” increase in youth unemployment rates, reversing earlier favorable trends over the past decade.

At the peak of the crisis period in 2009, the global youth unemployment rate saw its largest annual increase on record, rising from 11.8 per cent to 12.7 per cent between 2008 and 2009 – an unprecedented increase of 4.5 million unemployed youth worldwide.

The average increase of the pre-crisis period (1997-2007) was less than 100,000 persons per year.

The report says the absolute number of unemployed youth fell slightly since its peak in 2009 – from 75.8 million to 75.1 million in late 2010, a drop of 12.7 per cent – and is expected to decline to 74.6 million in 2011, or 12.6 per cent.

However, this is due more to youth withdrawing from the labor market, rather than finding jobs. This is especially true in the developed economies and the European Union region.

The agency warns of a “scarred” generation of young workers and growing frustration amid millions of youth worldwide who are facing a dangerous mix of high unemployment, increased inactivity and precarious work.

If youth unemployment were examined alone, states the report, one might wrongly guess that young people in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are doing well compared to the developed economies, when in fact the high employment-to-population ratios of youth in the poorest regions mean the poor have no choice but work.

“There are by far more young people around the world that are stuck in circumstances of working poverty than are without work or looking for work,” the report points out.

It also notes that the collective frustration among youth has been a contributing factor to protest movements around the world this year, as it becomes increasingly difficult for young people to find anything other than part-time and temporary work.

It adds that the “bad luck of the generation entering the labor market in the years of the Great Recession brings not only current discomfort from unemployment, under-employment and the stress of social hazards associated with joblessness and prolonged inactivity, but also possible longer-term consequences in terms of lower future wages and distrust of the political and economic system.”

“These new statistics reflect the frustration and anger that millions of youth around the world are feeling,” said José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, executive director of the ILO Employment Sector.

He noted that governments are struggling to find innovative solutions through labor market interventions such as addressing skills mismatches, job search support, entrepreneurship training and subsidies to hiring.

“These measures can make a difference, but ultimately more jobs must come from measures beyond the labor market that aim to remove obstacles to growth recovery such as accelerating the repair of the financial system, bank restructuring and recapitalization to re-launch credit to small- and medium-sized enterprises, and real progress in global demand rebalancing,” he said.

The report offers a series of policy measures for promoting youth employment, including developing an integrated strategy for growth and job creation with a focus on young people as well as improving the quality of jobs and investing in the quality of education and training.

Perhaps most important of all, according to the report, is to pursue financial and macroeconomic policies that aim to remove obstacles to economic recovery.

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SPECIAL NOTE: The Salesians are widely regarded as the world’s largest provider of technical and vocational training, operating in some of the most remote and poor places on the planet.

The post UN REPORT: World’s Youth Facing Worsening Jobs Crisis first appeared on MissionNewswire.