Stephania Aldana Cabas - GFMER Coordinator for Colombia

Stephania Aldana Cabas

GFMER Coordinator for Colombia

Stephania Aldana Cabas

Stephania Aldana Cabas
Master's candidate International and Development Studies at IHEID
Journalist focused on human rights and health
GFMER Country Coordinator for Colombia
stephania.aldanac@gmail.com / stefania@aldana.ch

I am pursuing a Master's in International and Development Studies while working on human rights and health.

The interests are sexual rights and sexual education for adolescents and women due to the increase in the rate of ordinary people who do not have access to the information. Therefore, developing communications channels with Colombian and Latino-American partners focused on how Colombian people should access projects and courses where they can learn about sexual rights and sexual health.

At the same time, it is the way to decrease the rate of unwanted pregnancies and the dangers of abortion in an unsafe way.

Country situations and activities of SRH

In Colombia and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is necessary to implement sexual health and sexual rights courses focused on adolescents and women to aim to decrease the rate of unwanted pregnancies. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) showed in its study from 2000 to 2020 called Adolescent pregnancy or Embarazo en adolescentes in Spanish that the maternity rate is higher than 12% in the region. This number is more representative in the adolescents that live in context with low acquisition power and do not have access to higher education.

Colombia is one of the countries that is focused on implementing the courses because in 2022, "there were 4.169 births where mothers were girls between 10 to 14 years old, and in the same year, 93.096 births were registered in teenagers among 15 to 19 years old", according to Profamilia.

For those reasons, courses in Spanish will be the way to bring tools to the public to learn about sexual health and sexual rights through partners, experts from universities, institutions, professionals focused on the health area, and students.

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