The Youth of Developed Nations Are Languishing

 

As per the Innocenti Report card no.3, at least 1.25 million teenagers become pregnant each year in the 28 OECD nations. Of those, approximately half a million seek abortion and approximately three quarters of a million become teenage mothers. 4,94,000 teen births are accounted for by the United States. Every year some 3 million American teenagers contract a sexually transmitted infection (about 1 in every 4 sexually experienced teenagers).

Overall, roughly one-quarters of the nation’s sexually active teens have been infected by a sexually transmitted disease (STD). In one act of unprotected sex with an infected partner, a teenage woman has a 1 in 100 chance of contracting HIV, a 1 in 3 chance of contracting genital herpes and 1 in 2 chance of correcting gonorrhea. Approximately a quarter of all new cases of HIV/AIDS are diagnosed in young people under the age of 22. More than US $ 400 million from federal and state funds has been spent on ‘abstinence only’ campaigns in American schools. Today, one in three US high schools has an abstinence only policy on sex education.

As per a report of ‘The Heritage Center for Data Analysis,’ sexually active girls are more than three times more likely to be depressed all, most, or a lot of the time than are girls who are not sexually active. Boys who are sexually active are more than twice as likely to be depressed all, most, or a lot of times as are those who are not sexually active. Sexually active teenager boys are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than are boys who are not sexually active.

Among girls 14.3 percent of those who are sexually active have attempted suicide and among boys 6.0 percent of those who are sexually active have attempted suicide.

The link between teen sexual activity and depression in supported by clinical experience. Doctor of adolescent medicine, Meg Meekar on page 64 of his book, ‘Epidemic: How Teen Sex is Killing  our Kids’, writes, “Teenage sexual activity routinely leads to emotional turmoil and psychological distress… (sexual permissiveness leads) to empty relationships, to feelings of self-contempt and worthlessness. All, of course, precursors to depression.”

Dear Indian brethren! Now think for yourself, are we to import their degradation into our country? Would the parents of Indian girls like them to be swept away with the blind imitation of the western culture and fall victims to lust, undergo abortion or become teenage mothers by getting entangled in the vicious celebrations like Valentine’s Day?

 
-Pujya Bapuji
Source: Rishi Prasad April 2006

 

Click Here to read the complete unicef Innocenti Report.