Tatenda Songore, Executive Director of Youth Advocates, has expressed concern that the mismatch  of laws and policies remains a major barrier to progress in their regional campaign for adolescents’ access to sexual and reproductive health services.

He noted that some of the countries that they are implementing the Step Up 4 Adolescents SRH campaign have progressive policies  

“Where the policies are progressive, like, for example, in Zimbabwe, we’ve got youth-friendly health-service provisions where there are nine clinical standards, World health Organizations standards, which allow for appropriate adequate and affordable services for adolescent young people. When they present it to the health care facility, and the nurse decides to offer them a service,  the law does not protect them from offering that service because those services, if it's for HIV testing, the young people have to be 16 years and above. If it’s for other SRH services for Zimbabwe it’s not clear.

“We are saying  that our laws need to be consistent with the constitution, which offers access to health care services, including reproductive health care services to everyone. We need to  make sure that the laws are consistent with the constitution and also progressive policies are also tied to the laws of the country, he said.

He  highlighted that they have been working in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, and Malawi and adolescents should remain a key focus for the SRH interventions.

“We are focused on adolescents because within East and Southern Africa, adolescents experience high HIV incidences, and we are also experiencing high child marriages, teenage pregnancies, and the triple threat has been affecting especially those in extreme poverty or families that are in poverty, because when a pregnancy happens, young people are trapped in a cycle of poverty.

So we are seeing that when we offer access to reproductive health services, we are empowering young people with the tools to fight poverty, with the tools to pursue their education, with the tools to be able to shape their lives and careers,” he said.

Songore also highlighted that on average they have been  seeing between 19% to around 31% child marriages which is a quite a worrying trend.

Maxwell Changombe,Restless Development programs Coordinator said complemented Zimbabwean government’s efforts in implementing the comprehensive sexuality education at nursing and teacher-learning institutions.

“Particularly  here in Zimbabwe, we really applaud our government for the efforts that they are doing to ensure that comprehensive sexuality education is being taught in teacher-learner institutions and also in nurse training institutions.

“We really implore the government to ensure that they really enforce the implementation of comprehensive sexuality education in schools, where it’s being structured as guidance and counseling, and we really applaud that,”he said.

If implemented fully and consistently Comprehensive sexuality education could help address challenges such as child exploitation, gender-based violence, and drug abuse.

WHO emphasises that adolescents need access to comprehensive sexuality education,SRHR services and counseling to support their autonomy and well being. Key provisions include ensuring services are accessible, confidential, non judgemental and rights to privacy and informed consent.