The UN Population Fund says it will be promoting the implementation of sex education in Papua New Guinea in an effort to address some of the issues the country is facing.
Photo: 123RF
The UNPF's Koffi Kouame said the country's population growth rate was about 3.1 percent and every 25 years the population doubles.
Mr Kouame said there will be a new local programme from 2018-2022 which will focus on getting comprehensive sex education in schools.
He said there will be cultural challenges with many parents and churches opposing such moves.
But Mr Kouame said it was important that people were aware that if the right information is not provided to young people they will experiment and get into trouble.
"If you go out to the community in PNG you will see the girls married off early and then you start seeing girls aged 15 or even less even start having babies and many of them come with complications and many of them have illegal abortions so these are some of the challenges we see and issues and how we can empower with information."
