Impacts on Early Emotional Development

The region I chose was the East Asia and the Pacific.  I chose this area because I am from China that is one of the countries in the area.  The office of the UNICEF East Asia & Pacific locates at 19 Phra Athit Road, Banglumpoo, Pranakorn, Bangkok 10200. Thailand. In my memory, Thailand is famous for its "Red-Light" area and ladyboy. Thailand is one of the countries that form the Golden-triangle region with none-government and planting meconium/opium poppy. I did not want to hear it more. I knew Thailand is an economic advance country compared to China. I though it was the result of its “tourism industry” which had given me its negative view, the sexual culture and cocaine. Working on anti-bias education and seeing the location of the UNICEF East Asia & Pacific office, I am, now, interesting in learning more about this area.

One issue is that in Asia and the Pacific, there are 135 million of children under the age of five are invisible, which means they do not have their births registered. When children are denied an official record of existing, they also may be denied access to health care and education, leading to poorer health outcomes and lower educational attainment. If you do not have any documentation to prove you exist you are at a higher risk for being trafficked and less likely to be found if you go missing (UNICEF EAPRO, 2014a). Another issue is the adolescent pregnancy.  A significant number of adolescents in the East Asia and Pacific region are sexually active. Adolescent girls who become pregnant face shame, social isolation, and depression. Pregnant girls tended to drop out of school and hide in shame. Babies born to adolescent mothers are abandoned or adopted by other families through informal arrangements. When an adolescent girl, who is technically a child herself, becomes pregnant, this endangers both her and her baby’s rights. Most adolescents do not have the knowledge, skills to access to services required to prevent unplanned pregnancies, or to deal with early parenthood and the associated challenges of social stigma, interrupted education and other long term consequences (UNICEF EAPRO, 2014b).

Reading these issues, I am thinking, is there a correlation between the invisible children and the children who born to adolescent mothers?  What was the reason of so many invisible children?  Were those adolescent mothers enrolled in school? What would it be if all the children have to be registered at birth? I heard a joke that all children should register by their DNA at the birth. I wish it would become true. I wish all children should enroll in school where they might learn the necessary knowledge and skills relates the sexuality. I wish there are the health care systems that provide the reproductive health services and register services for those adolescent mothers and their children. I wish there would be no more adolescent pregnant in the future. I wish there are no more invisible children. 

References

UNICEF EAPRO, (2014a), Invisible children in East Asia and the Pacific http://unicefeapro.blogspot.com/2014/09/invisible-children-in-east-asia-and.html

UNICEF EAPRO, (2014b),Tackling the hidden issue of adolescent pregnancy in Asia-Pacific, http://unicefeapro.blogspot.com/2014/09/tackling-hidden-issue-of-adolescent_19.html