'70 million school dropouts across world'

This year’s report, released by UNICEF in association with the Karnataka Child Rights Observatory here on Wednesday, focuses exclusively on adolescents.

Mahila Samakhya Karnataka State Project Director Dr Suchitra Vedanth said there was a need to focus on adolescent boys in India. “There are more programmes targeting adolescent girls than boys in the country,” she said. “One area that we need to focus is on peer pressure. Adolescents are feeling the need to conform, but we need to provide opportunities for them to become role models,” she added.

Dr Vedanth also warned that television and the internet were setting standards for behaviour in our country. “In rural areas, this is creating a huge generation gap with the effect that the expectations of the youth differ from those of their parents,” she said.

The report also finds that in the developing world, the poorest adolescent girls are roughly three times as likely to be married before the age of 18 than their peers in the richest households. It is also estimated that around one in every five adolescents suffers from a mental health or behavioural problem.