WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that failing to address the mental, sexual and reproductive health of adolescents will have “serious and life-threatening consequences for young people”. It will also come at a massive cost for society, which justifies a major public investment from governments worldwide.

Tedros noted that anaemia among adolescent girls remains “prevalent” and at levels similar to those in 2010, while close to one in 10 teenagers is obese.

STDs on the rise

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including syphilis, chlamydia, trichomoniasis and genital herpes that commonly occur among youth are on the rise too.

If left untreated, they could have “lifelong implications for health”, the WHO chief said, citing new data.

Tedros also spoke out against attempts to “roll back” young people’s access to sexual and reproductive healthcare and sex education in response to growing opposition to gender equality and human rights.

He said that any restrictive age of consent policies limit young people’s access to critical services, including those for sexually transmitted infections and HIV.

Adolescence is a unique and critical stage of human development, involving major physical, emotional and social transitions, and is a pivotal window for laying long-term foundations for good health, WHO notes.

“Promoting and protecting the health and rights of young people is essential to building a better future for our world,” said Tedros.

“Conversely, failing to address the health threats that adolescents face – some longstanding, some emerging – will not only have serious and life-threatening consequences for young people themselves, but will create spiraling economic costs.”

Gains are possible

The publication was launched at an event on the margins of the UN Summit of the Future.

“Adolescents are powerful and incredibly creative forces for good when they are able to shape the agenda for their wellbeing and their future,” said Rajat Khosla, executive director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, which co-hosted the launch.

“Leaders must listen to what young people want and ensure they are active partners and decision makers,” she added.

Indigenous Peoples of Russia face ‘extinction’ from Ukraine mobilisation

Russia’s Indigenous Peoples face “extinction” because they have been subjected to “massive” mobilisation to fight in the war in Ukraine, a top independent rights expert said on Monday.

The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Russia, Mariana Katzarova, maintained that most of the mobilisation of minority communities had been forced.

“The mobilisation of Indigenous Peoples, particularly from small-numbered nations, is massive, and the death rate is massive, which is threatening them with extinction,” she said, citing civil society data.

‘Almost no Slavic faces’ on frontline

The independent rights expert, who does not work for the UN or receive a salary from the Organization, said that following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, she saw “almost no Slavic faces” on images broadcast from the frontline, but rather those of Russia’s ethnic peoples.

“It was the Buryatians, it was the Kalmykians, it was the Chechens, it was the national minorities of Russia,” she insisted.

Speaking in Geneva, Ms. Katzarova said that Russian authorities had gone to the country’s “faraway places” to find war recruits.

“The mobilisation hasn’t been so brutal in Moscow and St. Petersburg…It’s the most sophisticated places where people know their rights.

“But, when you go 100 miles away on the train from Moscow and St. Petersburg and let alone in the far-away regions of Siberia…people don’t even feel they have a choice. They don’t even know their rights.”

The independent rights expert said she had documented cases where the military had gone “door to door” in their search for soldiers and “just drag out the men from Indigenous villages”.

Ms. Katzarova is due to present her report to the Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

Belarus authorities quell ‘all avenues of dissent’, UN Rights Council hears

Serious rights violations are continuing against civil society and critics of the Government in Belarus, the UN Human Rights Council heard on Monday.

Appointed by the Council in Geneva, the Group of Independent Experts on Belarus highlighted numerous grave abuses linked to protests at the disputed re-election of Presidential Alexander Lukashenko in 2020.

These include deaths, torture, gender-based violence and denial of the right to a fair trial, said Karinna Moskalenko, chair of panel of independent experts.

Climate of fear

She said the government “continues to instill a pervasive climate of fear by quelling all avenues of dissent, including in the digital space. New electronic intelligence equipment appears to have been pursued to increase the monitoring of online activities, ahead of the Presidential elections.”

Ms. Moskalenko, who as an independent expert does not work for the UN, further maintained that President Lukashenko’s government was “responsible for the near-total destruction of civic space and fundamental freedoms in Belarus”.

Most opponents of the authorities had been “either imprisoned or forced into exile since the 2020 elections”, she noted.