BOX 1. A BRIEF SITUATION DESCRIPTION AND KEY FIGURES (CONT.) Lack of access to family planning services also increases the rate of abortions, including unsafe abortions. Of the estimated 80 million unwanted or unintended pregnancies each year, an estimated 45 million are terminated. Of these 45 million abortions, 19 million are unsafe with 40 per cent done on women below 25 years of age. About 68, 000 women die every year from complications of unsafe abortion.9 Other surveys show that the poorer an adolescent girl (aged between 15 and 19 years of age) is and the less access she has to education, the more likely she is to become pregnant: an adolescent girl without formal education is more than four times as likely to become pregnant than an adolescent girl with secondary education.10 This not only reflects the human cost paid when information on and access to family planning is insufficient; it also illustrates a world in which adolescent girls are forced or otherwise coerced into sex and/or marriage. Child, early and forced marriages (and early unions without marriage) are among the many harmful practices affecting young girls, primarily in the developing world. These violations of reproductive rights – childbirth before physical and mental readiness – a common consequence of early marriages, can lead to obstetric fistula and other detrimental health consequences for both babies and mothers. Additionally, surveys show that adolescent mothers are much less likely to have access to education than adolescent girls not affected by motherhood.11 The international community has acknowledged that maternal mortality is primarily a human rights challenge and a social justice issue. Maternal mortality and infant death are avoidable in the overwhelming majority of cases and States have a positive obligation to prevent them.12 The Human Rights Council in 2012 adopted a Technical Guidance on a Human Rights-Based Approach to Policies and Programmes on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity to ensure a more integral response to this critical human rights and development challenge13 and to ensure remedies in case of human rights abuses. For instance, the adoption or perpetuation of legal barriers preventing women and men from accessing family planning services is a violation of their right to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so. Similarly, it is a violation of the right 9 World Health Organization, Journal Paper. The Lancet: Anna Glasier, A Metin Gülmezoglu, George P Schmid, Claudia Garcia Moreno, Paul FA Van Look. “Sexual and reproductive health: a matter of life and death.” The Lancet Sexual and Reproductive Health Series, October 2006. 10 Statistics for sub-Saharan Africa from UNFPA. “How Universal is Access to Reproductive Health: A review of the evidence” , 2010. 11 See UNFPA. Giving girls today and tomorrow, Breaking the cycle of adolescent pregnancy, 2007. 12 As acknowledged by the Human Rights Council in resolutions A/HRC/RES/21/6, A/HRC/RES/18/2, A/ HRC/RES/15/17 and A/HRC/RES/11/8. 13 Report of the Office of the High Commissioner on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity, UN Doc. A/ HRC/14/39. 16