Las y los adolescentes que México ha olvidado (Mexico’s forgotten adolescents)

Save the Children is campaigning at an international and national level to achieve the greatest impact for children with the Every Last Child Campaign.

While there has been significant progress in Mexico during the last 15 years in the areas of health and extreme poverty reduction in the framework of the Millennium Development, adolescents are a group that have not benefitted from the progress. The existing governmental policies on adolescents tend to focus more on security issues rather than providing an integral perspective on their development.

Mexican adolescents face various challenges ranging from poverty, inequality, exclusion, discrimination and a lack of opportunities. Today, 50% of Mexican adolescents aged 12 to 19 live in poverty. Of those, 11% live in extreme poverty.

Adolescents often lack access to sexual and reproductive health services which is highly relevant in a country that has the highest rate of adolescent pregnancy amongst OECD countries: one out of five births in Mexico are from adolescents. 

Read the full Every Last Child campaign report here.