Margaret Bolaji, FP2020 Reference Group Member

As a young person and leader in Northern Nigeria, I am one voice among the 1.8 billion youth and adolescents on this planet, calling on governments, civil societies, multilateral organizations, donors, the private sector, the research and development community, and all stakeholders to make our sexual and reproductive health and rights a priority.

My profound interest in working with the most marginalized youth has led me to work with adolescent girls for over four years in “safe spaces” in the rural communities of Nigeria, my home country. These “safe spaces” are usually convened in the homes of Imams and community leaders. It was in one of these spaces that I met Maryam, a young woman like me.

Maryam resides in Northern Nigeria and had the beautiful dream of becoming the first nurse in her community. Her dream did not materialize when she was forced to marry Aminu at age 12. One year after marriage, Maryam, conceived her first child, but there were complications. She narrowly escaped incurring a vaginal fistula due to her young age and immature pelvis and she needed to wait before having another child.

Today, at age 18, Maryam has three children, and is tragically a widow.

Maryam is one of the millions of young people around the world who live out the nightmare and consequences of early and forced marriage every day. When young people face uncertainty and insecurity about prospects for education, employment and income, they are less likely to practice healthy and safe sexual behaviors or make informed decisions about if and when to have children.

Today there are more adolescents and youth in the world than ever before. This is a force for change but can also be a force for political destabilization and to ignore young people’s needs is politically unwise. Every adult refers to us youth as “leaders of tomorrow” but often stops short of involving us in processes that will equip us to be good and successful leaders today.

We’ve come a long way over the last fifteen years, especially in the area of youth engagement. More so, we’ve seen increased involvement for youth in the last four years with the advances made by the Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) initiative. The mandate of FP2020 is to enable 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020 by addressing the policy, financing, delivery and socio-cultural barriers to women accessing contraceptive information, services and supplies.

Maryam is one of the millions of young people around the world who live out the nightmare and consequences of early and forced marriage every day.

As we enter the midpoint of the FP2020 initiative and well beyond its closure, we must make youth involvement a priority. It must never, ever be underestimated. Over the past year, we have seen the largest wave of new and renewed commitments to FP2020, demonstrating that our collective vision and energy behind family planning is driving real progress.

Unless sexual and reproductive health and rights are supported and upheld, young people and especially young women will remain neglected, frustrated and even lose their lives needlessly. As a global community, we cannot afford this loss of human potential if reaping demographic dividends is to be a reality.

We have come so far as partners, together shaping the future with the ability to transform lofty words into local action. I firmly believe that together, we can deliver on FP2020’s promise for women, girls and young people all over the world.

We may have failed Maryam, but we must not fail the millions of others like her who are counting on us to get it right.

July 11 marked the midpoint of Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), the global partnership that supports the rights of women and girls to decide, freely and for themselves, whether, when, and how many children they want to have. This blog is part of a series that looks at a key intervention to accelerate progress on our goal to enable an additional 120 million women and girls to use modern family planning methods: ensuring young people have the right to plan their families and their futures. We know that the ability to reach more young people with contraception in ways that speak to their own needs and desires is essential to achieving our goal by 2020, which is a critical milestone on the road to 2030 and providing universal access to family planning under the Sustainable Development Goals. For more information, visit www.familyplanning2020.org/midpoint.

Image: FP2020 postcards.