“If we want to better understand and support young people, we first need to listen to them.”

UNICEF and the Global Early Adolescent Study at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health asked young people aged 10-19 in 13 countries worldwide “to talk about their greatest emotional and behavioural challenges and explain how they are shaped – for better and worse – by family, friends and teachers” and how they cope.

Below are excerpts from their report, titled On My Mind – How Adolescents Experience and Perceive Mental Health:

On entrenched gender norms

I wish to work and have my own independent personality and I don’t want to depend on my family in everything or to get married to someone who wants to control me as he wishes…I wish to live a different way but the society and the whole world is surrounding me with something I don’t know, and I feel disabled. – Older girl, Egypt

The girl loves her studies and is interested in her studies more [than marrying early]. [But her parents] tell her to leave school because in the end, “You will be in your husband’s house. Girls are created to marry and work.” – Younger girl, Jordan

There is the notion that boys must be tough, and if he complains or if he opens up, he would be…mocked…[as] weak. – Older boy, Indonesia

In our society, I have the impression that a man does not have the right to experience his feelings…At home, they will tell me that you cannot cry…you have to be strong.
– Older boy, Switzerland

We all have problems, but guys are supposed to be like robots and people think we can’t have feelings. – Older boy, United States

On violence in their communities

[Girls worry about] coming home alive…most times I don’t even leave my road because you have some perverts in my community and sometimes, I feel very uncomfortable.
– Older girl, Jamaica

Now you have to go out in the street with fear because at any moment you can be… raped, killed, assaulted. – Older girl, Chile

I got raped. I’m currently a teenage mother and all of those things have brought me to suicide, self-harm…I’m a walking time bomb. I can go off any minute. – Older girl, Jamaica

[Young people] don’t walk freely because they are always afraid of being attacked by other people in the streets. – Younger boy, Malawi

Because…there are too many ‘flaite’ [slang for aggressive/vulgar youth], in fact, on the street…I don’t like to go out, I’d rather stay locked up. – Younger boy, Chile

On the toll gender norms take on mental health

Mental health is more dangerous in boys than girls because boys cannot talk about it and…well, they close themselves off, they never speak of it, and after a while it starts to eat at them. – Younger boy, Switzerland

When he knows that he has a problem, but he is not willing to share with anyone… That thing will eat him up. – Older boy, Kenya

I feel that the boys are the ones who usually don’t want to share their problems. Because they feel that they are men enough and they can struggle with their own problems. So if they share, what will people say? They will start saying that you are announcing your problems…They will start calling you a woman. – Older boy, Kenya

There is also not wanting to speak about it, to stay silent because we do not want others to worry. Not wanting to be a weight. – Older girl, Switzerland

On social media and a crippling need for online validation

Social media I think is a very big influence…you compare yourself with other people…you don’t…see that they are another human being…[that] they have other problems, you only see this facade of a human being that is perfect, and it makes you feel worse.
– Older boy, Sweden

With social media now, we have so many different platforms: TikTok, Instagram. We have certain images that we see as ‘the it’ image and if people don’t fit into that…they have a bit of difficulty. – Older girl, Jamaica

Comparing yourself with your own friends on your social media…so one becomes upset but it’s because of your own thinking. Something like, “Why can’t I be like that? Why can’t I have fun like them?”…Meanwhile, I’m still like this, nothing has changed for me.
– Older girl, Indonesia

If she falls below the bar, for example, of seven hundred likes, well, she has to find [a follower] to subscribe…It’s an obsession. – Older girl, Belgium

Women nowadays that have under one thousand followers on Instagram don’t see themselves as enough. Every time they post up a picture, they are constantly going back online to see how many likes the pictures have received. – Older boy, Jamaica

On parental pressure

After each exam, if I fail the exam…[my parents] will say, “You should learn from [your peers], how high scores they got, 100, 98. Look at them, and then look back to you.” – Younger girl, China

Parents also put pressure…If there are problems with school or academics, and the parents are always asking for more, and finally the person is more and more stressed, it creates a type of vicious cycle without solutions. – Older girl, Switzerland

On stigma and barriers to mental health care

With stress and mental illness, for many it’s a very anxious subject. And you don’t really want to talk about it…society has kind of made it into a big thing, that it’s supposed to be something negative. – Older girl, Sweden

I think we have a hard time with mental health as youth because we do not talk enough about it, because people are scared to talk about it. Maybe if we…[could] express ourselves more without feeling judged or assaulted, maybe we would make some progress. – Older boy, Switzerland

Whenever you have a session with a psychologist, you pay for them, right?…Now what I would like to have is for that service to be free of charge, so that children can get help without any burden of financial concerns. – Older boy, Indonesia

Photo by Brent Ninaber on Unsplash