Capacity and Consent: Empowering Adolescents to Exercise their Reproductive Rights

With adolescents and youth constituting a quarter of the global population – for a total of 1.8 billion people – it has never been more critical that their human rights be fully recognized and realized within global arenas and at the regional, national, and community level. This publication sets forth the barriers adolescents face in realizing their sexual and reproductive health and rights, discusses recent critical developments in the human rights framework underpinning these rights, and proposes a way forward for guaranteeing all adolescents the full exercise of their sexual and reproductive health and rights.