To improve access to sexual and reproductive health, particularly for women and girls, a civil society organisation (CSO), Education As a Vaccine, has said age, gender, disability type, poverty, HIV status, marital status, etc., are barriers that must be surmounted to achieve results.
It noted that in Nigeria, there is concern that the sexual experience of young women and girls occur without adequate information on contraception, consent and other rights, and it makes them vulnerable to abuse.
Speaking in Abuja during a briefing on a symposium on rights-based approaches to accessing quality sexual reproductive health (SRH) information for women and girls, Fisayo Owoyemi of Community Action Facilitator, We Lead, said: “The programme puts young women rights holders in charge, while they receive support to impact and sustain advocacy for their SRHR.
‘’We Lead is implemented in Nigeria by a Community of Action (COA) of 11 organisations, these COAs will support in developing and implementing strategies to shift social and gender norms.
“We Lead Nigeria takes part in the commemoration of International Human Rights Day. Human Rights day is celebrated every December 10 to create awareness and mobilise political will to promote respect for rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The 2022 Theme of Human Rights Day is Dignity, Freedom, and Justice for All. Both the Declaration and WHO’s Constitution assert that health is a fundamental human right for all people.”
Mercy Bolaji, programme coordinator of Stand With A Girl (SWAG) Initiative, said: “Because we work on sexual reproductive health, seven of 10 women in internally displaced persons camp are affected by sexual and gender-based violence. They are deprived of their human rights. This is just for women affected by displacement.’’
“Going to the schools, you see a lot of adolescents who are affected by teenage pregnancies because somebody has restricted them from having access to information first on sexual and reproductive health.”