News

In a world of adult concerns, young people are often overlooked. While the number of young people will continue to rise in coming years, countries that meet youth’s needs now will be in a far better position by the second half of the century. These are some of the key points of UNFPA's State of the World Population Report 2014 The power of 1.8 Billion: Youth and the Transformation of the Future.

LAHORE / QUETTA / ISLAMABAD / PESHAWAR: Fourteen-year-old Zeba wakes early in the morning with her younger siblings Saira and Hina. The girls get dressed, comb their hair and leave their home at 7.30 am; they are not headed to their school, but to help their mother who works as a maid at several houses in the capital. (..) “In a conservative society like Pakistan a girl usually has to face discrimination right from the moment her family learns that a mother-to-be is pregnant with a baby girl,” said Country Representative Rutgers Qadeer Baig as Pakistan marks the International Day of the Girl Child, commemorated annually by the United Nations on October 11.

Victories for gay rights in some parts of the world have provoked a backlash elsewhere, states the Economist on October 11th.

KAMPALA - The government has been called on to embark an inclusive health care system to help reduce the number of unsafe abortions among mostly young Ugandans. In fact, youths and the civil society are demanding for a law to legalize abortion for cases that are extreme and unavoidable. During a an Inter-Generational Dialogue (IGD) in Kampala recently, students and other youths that attended the meet argued that many pregnancies are as a result of inevitable circumstances like defilement and rape.

Kampala, Uganda - Today nearly half of the World’s population – around 3 billion people- are under the age of 25. As these young people become sexually active, sexual and reproductive health services are under increasing pressure.

About 150 young SRHR leaders from 19 cities across Pakistan participated in the two-day ‘Youth Ask Leadership Conclave 2014’, organized by Rutgers Pakistan. The event allows young people to become the face of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) initiatives at national and international events.

Do you agree it is important that you are able to make decisions about your own body? Whether you want to have children, and how many? Whether you use contraception, and which kind? Who you share your life with? And how you shape your own future? Please, sign the petition ‘I Decide’, preferably before 22 September 2014.

Our Annual Report, Rutgers Magazine 2013, is now online. It is full of inspiring personal stories how people – young and old – in the Netherlands and in wider Europe, Africa and Asia, have been able to change their lives using the comprehensive programmes of Rutgers.

On July 17 a flight MH17 from Malaysia Airlines departing from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur crashed in Ukraine. Rutgers is shocked and saddened by the disaster. Amongst the victims are a group of Dutch and international HIV experts, activists and colleagues from the field of sexual and reproductive health on their way to AIDS2014, the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne.

In 2013 Rutgers closed its office in Vietnam and handed its activities to the Sexual Rights Alliance of Vietnam. During thirteen years in the country we were able to support tens of thousands young people to improve their sexual and reproductive health and rights.