STAKEHOLDERS GEAR UP FOR NEW TECHNIQUES IN SEXUAL REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

STAKEHOLDERS GEAR UP FOR NEW TECHNIQUES

IN SEXUAL REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

BY ABDULMUMINI ADEKU..source of pictures:google

Stakeholders rising from a recently held one day seminar on sexual reproductive health under the aegis of the AVAC Fellowship project and the Journalists Against H.I.V/AIDS epidemic[JAIDDS] have called on the entire media both local and global to support their advocacy on sexual reproductive health in Nigeria.

At a one day confab on sexual reproductive health in the presence of a cross section of members of the Nigerian press ,stakeholders affirmed that they could only make a success of what ever they were doing if they had the press supporting them all the way.

In his interventions, Mr David Ita ,an Avac Fellow who was at the event said that there advocacy was concentrated in areas where the H.I.V/A.I.D.S epidemic was at its peak .

He assured that the campaign was a year long project targeted at battling the disease in all ramifications as his major advocacy role was to help stimulate a change in behavior in school curricular.

He insisted that his agency was training people to help in advocating in the varying communities  on the dangers of H.I.V/A.I.D.S

According to him the United Nations Agency on AIDS had deducted in their study that there were poor health outcomes among all adolescents living with H.IV./AIDS and this was due to poor priorities of the teens .

The expert on reproductive health listed the a database for sex saying that one in every four pregnancy was not intended at all with 37.4 percent of female and 20.0 percent of males aged 15 to 19 years reported ever having sex .

Mr Ita then went deeply into his analysis by stating that teenage pregnancy occurred due to early initiations of sexual intercourse  leading to possible mortality rate of 814  per 100 ,000 live births as at 2015 and contributed about 19 percent of all maternal death globally .

His words :”adolescents aged between 15 to 19 years contribute about 10 percent to the situation,a survey in 2004 showed that there was 1 out four females who had reported experiencing sexual violence in childhood with approximately 70 percent reporting more than  one percent incident of sexual violence .”

“the age of health care services in Nigeria is 18 years but the participation in health research of non-invasive procedures  also will infer that the recommended age for consent is put at 14 years “

“the child rights requires that all action taken concerning the child whether taken by a private or public body must primarily consider the child’s bests interests ,the child rights act does not address  the age at which children should be allowed to independently consent to all forms of health care services “

“the eco-study that was done recently did not include the whole of west Africa as it concerns the usage of contraceptives “

Mr Ita listed access barriers to services under the sexual reproductive health as including the negative attitude of health care providers towards teens,fears of not being understood pretty  well by older persons,lack of privacy ,discriminating stigma, poor facilities

Mr Ita identified such features like not been too young to run, reliable heath workers should be provided ,effective capacity building for health workers ,availability of health care providers present at all times..,well equipped facilities,working with religious agencies  amongst t other features.

The health care sector guru pointed out that there were areas to be considered in adolescent sexual reproductive health and development  and this basically involved the transition from teen clinics such that there was a treatment regime for teen sufferers of the epidemic.