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27 - Social Justice and Adolescent Health

A Case Study of Rwanda

from Part III - Regional and Country Case Studies on Social Justice for Youth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

Caroline S. Clauss-Ehlers
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Aradhana Bela Sood
Affiliation:
Virginia Commonwealth University
Mark D. Weist
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
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Summary

Adolescents are a particularly vulnerable group of individuals in the global landscape. They are presumed to be healthy and thus garner less attention relative to age groups that shoulder the burden of disease. Greater global investment is merited to ensure the human rights of adolescents as numerous unique societal and structural challenges confront this age group. A difficulty to motivate this change is conflicting definitions of who are “adolescents” between major global agencies and funders; this hamstrings policy makers’ ability to measure or interpret adolescent health indicators. In this chapter, the authors present a case study from Rwanda so as to describe five key barriers to adolescents’ health in the country: challenge with defining “adolescence” in policy documents, fragmented policy planning and coverage, societal pressures and expectations, individual preferences, and gaps in data availability. After exploration of these barriers, the authors describe how Rwanda has progressed through building capacity for adolescents’ rights to health in the country. This model can inform policy makers who seek to bolster policies and resources that can be directed toward more effectively supporting this historically neglected group, which is our future generation.

Type
Chapter
Information
Social Justice for Children and Young People
International Perspectives
, pp. 419 - 436
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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