What are the cultural understandings of puberty, sexual debut, marriage, contraceptive use, sexuality, childbearing, and maturity and adulthood that influence the contraceptive motivations, emotional experiences, cognition, and behaviors of adolescent girls?

In Ethiopia, through youth-adult partnership, we’re working to address these questions to reduce the unmet need for contraception among married adolescent girls in rural parts of the country. Here’s what we’ve learend:

• In It Together: Young Ethiopian couples often desire joint decision-making in contraceptive use
• Uncertainty about changing times: Parents grapple with safeguarding their daughters amidst changing socioeconomic and cultural contexts. Still, proving fertility and having children is culturally revered.

This presentation, first delivered at the International Conference on Family Planning in November 2018, explores these points, and more. Click the link below to dive in.