Traditional and Religious leaders have been urged to give the right information on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) to vulnerable women and adolescents in their various communities.
Sexual Reproductive Experts from Vision Spring Initiatives, Oluwatosin Mayor-Olabiyitan and Oluwabukola Fagbemi made the call on Wednesday at a workshop on; “Value Clarification and Attitude Transformation Training For Religious and Traditional leaders” held in Akure , the Ondo state capital.
Speaking at the programme, Oluwatosin Mayor-Olabiyitan said the training which is under the ‘We lead’ project, is aimed at promoting Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights SRHR for the participants to be change makers in their communities.
In her presentation, Mayor-Olabiyitan highlighted the key concept of SRHR which includes autonomy, equity, comprehensive sexual education, consent and reproductive justice which she stated were all the rights of the women and the adolescents.
According to her, contraceptive is a preventive strategy to avoid unintended pregnancy that may lead to unsafe abortion.
She advised women to seek the services of medical or trained experts on which of the contraceptives may suite their body system rather than doubting the effectiveness.
Mayor-Olabiyitan also advised traditional and religious leaders not to outrightly condemn contraceptives, but to advise and educate women on advantages of contraceptives.
Dr Peter Olaleye from Marie Stopes Nigeria MSI , the country’s largest provider of sexual and reproductive healthcare services. spoke on the importance of family planing which prevents unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion .
Olaleye disclosed that Nigeria has been rated as one of the highest in maternal mortality rate in the world noting the vulnerability of the adolescent girls who need the right information.
” From one of the WHO Publications 2012 More than 210 million pregnancies are estimated yearly in the world and out of which 80 million are unplanned for, indicating a danger, while 46 million out of this end up in abortion and nearly half of the abortion are unsafe”, he stated.
