Adolescents aged 10-19 years constitute one- fourth of India’s population and young people aged 10-24 years about one-third of the population.This large cohort of young people represents a great demographic dividend with the potential to contribute to India’s economic growth and development. In order to realize this potential to the fullest, young people must be healthy, educated and equipped with information skills and confidence that would enable them to contribute to their communities’ and country’s socio-economic growth.

Adolescence represents a critical stage of transition from childhood to maturity. The physical and emotional experiences, knowledge and skills acquired during this phase have important implications during adulthood. Gender related challenges such as restrictions on mobility, lack of schooling or dropping out of school, early marriage and violence persists in creating certain unfair disadvantages for girls within this large group of adolescents in India. 

Problems of adolescents in Jharkhand

Adolescence and young age is important because of their major physical, physiological, , psychological and behavioral changes with changing patterns of social interactions and relationships.Adolescent girls and young women in the age group of 14-24 years account for 10% of the total population of Jharkhand. Findings of a recent survey of the World Bank indicate that a lot of effort is required in catering to adolescent girls  and young women because 62% of them are still deprived of basic skills and education and employment.

Low level of Awareness and outreach

Awareness about rights and entitlements, and information about the processes/schemes/interventions pertaining to educational and employment opportunities and skills training is found to be low among both boys and girls. Insufficient efforts at outreach and communication by Government agencies coupled with social stratification illiteracy and weak voice among the poor have limited their ability to know, demand and access their entitlements and eventually leading to their exclusion.

Gender specific

Under-recognized potential and vulnerability factors associated with Adolescent groups lead to less participation in training, education and employment. This is true more for girls whose participation in social welfare schemes is less because of the reluctance of their guardians to send their wards, lack of awareness about the interventions, dependency of AGs to support livelihoods and household domestic chores, Challenges and issues of tribal communities are different from other non tribal rural counterparts.Some of them like the Pahariyas live in hard to reach remote locations where outreach of various programmes/schemes is limited. There are communities also who are shy and reluctant to participate in most Government schemes.

Drop-out issues

Education for girls has been a critical factor in increasing age at marriage. However various factors including poverty, less priority for education for girls by parents and insensitive school environment contribute to drop out of boys and girls, with figures for girls being nearly 38%. Major challenge in mainstreaming the dropouts back to education is their identification, which is tedious due to lack of appropriate systems to track the drop-out girls.

Health and nutrition

Although the state has shown improvements in reducing infant mortality,from 48/1000 live birth in 2007 to 38/1000 live birth in 2012, early marriage continues to be there in 65% of rural adolescent girls. This has a bearing on their nutrition and health. According to a recent World bank study (2015) over two thirds of young women in Jharkhand , compared to their male counterparts are anemic. Low knowledge about their food and nutrition requirements coupled with gaps in  implementing programmes directed towards improving the nutritional status of young people including irregular flow of funds and delay in allocation of food grains aggravate the situation further.

• Education- Target villages have co-education primary and middle schools. Over 80% of the children between the age group 6-14 enrolled. The quality of education is a matter of concern because there is a huge gap between enrollment and quality teaching. Lack of teachers and additional work of maintaining mid day meal data, reporting to block and district office now and then, obstructed quality teaching. The Weak School Management Committee is also considered as one of the reasons for improper education.
• Economic activities- The target area  is predominantly agricultural in character. The main occupation of the people is cultivation. Kharif and Rabi are the main agricultural season. The soil is red, sedentary and suitable for paddy and rabbi crops such as kurthi, Arhar, and Barbatti. It is also suitable for maize, wheat, gram, Masoor, Mustard, rapeseed and vegetables.The rainy season starts from 2nd week of June and extends up to September with low to moderate rainfall throughout the monsoon period. The annual average rainfall of the district is 135.46cm. Lack of rains in non monsoon periods and consequent decline in groundwater table and water flow in the river and rivulets makes the district drought prone. The area is mainly mono cropped.
• The female workforce participation rate is in fact higher than male. However, wages are not equal in community work. Women get less than men. However, in government schemes for livelihood men and women have equal wages.Very few have a Job in Government or Private sector.
• In the absence of major employment opportunities, the economic options are limited to agriculture. Stone chips, rice milling, biri rolling, forest produce such as Mahua, tasser, and bamboo are the sources of income generation for a significant proportion of the people in the area. Poultry farming, piggery, animal husbandry and fisheries also provide supplementary income. The quality of livestock, however, is very poor. As a result, their contribution to the family income is almost insignificant but there is a scope for enhancing income from animal husbandry.
• Health- It is a malaria prone area. Beside malaria, people also suffer from diarrhea, cough, cold, and scabies. The area has to make serious efforts to improve health facilities. It is yet to take effective measures to enlarge the coverage of immunization programs. In the interior villages, many times ANMs are irregular to attend Village Health Nutrition Day. Also people lacking the importance of immunization hinder its benefit.
• About Adolescent Girls- Adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19, deserve our attention as they hold the key to breaking entrenched cycles of poverty, inequity and deprivation. These marginalized or poor are less likely to transition to secondary education and are more likely to experience abuse and exploitation. They do not enjoy access to quality education, basic, sexual and productive health care, support for mental health issues, for active participation in creating a supportive environment for adolescents, fostering forums for youth participation, investing in education and training, tackling poverty and inequity, and improving data collection and analysis.
• Adolescent girls out of school- In 2010, India had the third highest number of out of school girls in the world. The barriers to secondary education for girls broadly belong to two categories:
• Lack of Access: There is a shortage of secondary schools within a 2 km radius. All the schools have toilets but most of them have no water facilities.
• 25% of all children enrolled in Grade VIII have difficulty reading a simple text at the Grade II level of difficulty.
• Lack of vocational and life skill training.
• Promotion of schooling for adolescent girls reduces infant mortality by 5% to 10%. Girls with secondary schooling are up to six times less likely to be child brides than those with little or no education. An extra year of secondary school increases a girl’s potential income by 15-25%.
• Nourishing adolescent girls- Fifty per cent of adolescent girls are malnourished, putting them at risk of poor physical and cognitive growth, suboptimal education outcomes, low economic productivity, complicated pregnancies and undernourished babies. Malnutrition among adolescent girls in India has long-lasting consequences for them, their families and their children. They suffers complication related to:
• Reproductive health outcomes: Onset of the first period is often delayed among malnourished girls, leading to late and slower growth of their reproductive organs, which may be underdeveloped at the time of first pregnancy, posing a severe threat to both, mother and child.
• Education Outcomes: Even a moderate iodine deficiency can lead to a loss of 10-13 IQ points. Such deficiency directly impacts girls’ concentration, cognition and learning abilities. Combined with the onset of menstruation, poor school performance contributes to a higher dropout rate among adolescent girls.
• Low Productivity: Over 70% of girls suffer from moderate to severe anemia, compromising their immunity and physical capacity to work.
• Undernourished mothers, undernourished babies: Children born to severely anemic mothers are seven times more likely to suffer severe anemia than children born to non-anemic mothers.
• Early Child marriage: Almost 50% of adolescent girls are married before they turn 18 and 20% are married before 15 years of age.  22% of girls have already given birth by age 18. Child brides are twice as likely to report being abused.
• Improving Menstrual Health and Hygiene: Girls and women are lacking awareness of menstrual hygiene and associated healthcare practices. 88% of menstruating women and girls use home-grown alternatives such as old fabric, rags, and plastic. In absence of proper cleaning most of them are suffering from diseases.
• Human Trafficking: Pakur has today emerged as a major source area for intra-country trafficking in Jharkhand. Most of the trafficking from Pakur is of tribals for domestic labour to metropolitan cities where there is a demand for such work. In cities like Delhi, a number of illegal placement agencies have cropped up. These agencies take advantage of legal loopholes to traffic mostly innocent girls in the name of providing employment but instead are put into extreme conditions of forced labour. 12-14 hours of work every day is a routine practice for these girls. Many of those rescued also report physical and sexual abuse. Several cases of Sexual slavery have also been reported from the victims rescued in Delhi. Some of the victims are trafficked to Haryana and Punjab for the purpose of Bonded Labour and Forced marriage.
• According to Child Rights and You (CRY), firstly, an overwhelming 80 per cent of all trafficked or migrating girls from Jharkhand belong to tribal groups. Among these, about 70-80 per cent are children and mostly school dropouts. In Jharkhand, the trend of dropping out of school after completing primary classes is very common. Over 50 per cent of girl children drop out after the age of 10, though the government does not accept this data. The destination of a majority of these children is the same: the metros, where they are mostly employed as domestic help.