by Mimi Melles, Program Manager, International Youth Activist Network

In June 2012, world leaders will be gathering for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (also known as the Rio+20 Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to shape how the world should reduce poverty, advance social equity, and protect the environment.

Protecting young people's sexual health and rights can help us reach all of those goals — but will decision makers listen to the facts?

The time is now…for you to act NOW to sign our petition calling on leaders at Rio+20 to make young people's sexual health and rights a part of the conversation.

215 million women around the world have an unmet need for contraception, with young people being more negatively affected. Yet helping young people prevent unintended pregnancy and plan their families falls well within the Rio+20 mission. By responding to the unmet need for family planning we can reduce poverty: unintended pregnancy impacts financial security as well as health and well-being. We can advance social equity: providing young women with education and the ability to plan their families is a vital step in ensuring their equal rights. Responding to an unmet need for family planning is one of the most cost-effective approach to sustainable development.

Plus, young people are among those hardest hit by the harmful effects of climate change: it hampers access to both reproductive health care and education.

It's clear our rights have a place at Rio+20. Sign the petition now!

The petition, a part of The Time Is Now campaign, calls on the Rio+20 Secretary General, Sha Zukang, and Executive Coordinators, Elizabeth Thompson (former Minister of Environment, Barbados) and Ambassador Brice Lalonde (former Minister of Environment, France) to include sexual and reproductive health and rights of young people in the discussions leading up to and during the Rio+20 conference and ensure that youth reproductive and sexual health issues are part of the outcome document.

We know you care about young people, women's rights, reproductive health, sustainable development, and the environment. The good news is that protecting young people's sexual health and rights is progress toward all of those. The time is now for us to ask world leaders to recognize the connections!

Sign the petition now, and don't forget to like our Facebook Page and share the petition among your social networks, friends, and colleagues so that they can sign it too!

Click here to learn more about Rio+20.

Peace,