Bangladesh has the highest number of teen mothers in South Asia with more than 50 percent having their first child by 19, according to a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report.

The report, released in Dhaka and in other capitals across the world yesterday, says half the maternal deaths in Bangladesh result from early pregnancies, with teenage girls accounting for 35 percent of all pregnancies.

Bangladesh's projected population will stand at 146.7 million at the yearend and will be 254.6 million in 2050, with the average growth rate of 2 percent a year, the State of World Population Report 2003 forecasts.

UNFPA Country Representative Suneeta Mukherjee unveiled the report devoted to adolescents this year with its theme "Investing in adolescents' health and rights", at a programme at the Jatiya Press Club, where UNFPA Assistant

Representative Nurul Ameen and some members of a youth forum were present.

The report says the world's current population is 6,301.5 million: 1,203.3 million live in more developed regions, 5,098.2 million in the less developed region and 718.1 million in the least developed countries.

Despite the high growth rate, Bangladesh has achieved success in controlling total fertility rate in South Asia where the rate remained stagnant at 3.46 percent for the last few years, it says.

Contraceptive prevalence rate among eligible couples is 54 percent, behind the government target of 60 percent; and maternal mortality rate was reduced substantially and now stands at 3.77 percent, securing a better position in the regional context next to Iran at 0.76 percent and Sri Lanka at 0.92 percent.

But birth rate per 1,000 women, aged between 15-19, is higher than other countries in the region.

The report shows that 23 percent of the total population is adolescents. According to a baseline survey, 127 males and only three females out of 2,626 adolescents had premarital sex.

Of the males, 52 percent had sex with commercial sex workers and did not use condoms that increased the risk of sexual diseases like HIV or Aids.

At present, nearly a sixth of the total world population is adolescents, the report says. They engage in sexual activity often but that begin with little knowledge of safer sex and reproductive health.

The report underscored that the young people have a right to information and services to safeguard their sexual and reproductive health.