By Cyriacus Nnaji
Elizabeth Williams, a Youth Advocate for Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights, Founder, Sustainable Impact and Development Initiative, a youth-led organization that is committed to promoting the sexual reproductive health and right of young people in Nigeria, has listed stigma among other challenges militating against Sexual reproductive health in Nigeria.
Speaking on how aware the Nigerian youths are on issues of sexual reproductive health she said, “Currently many young people are still facing the issue of stigma, discrimination and in the area of accessing information. With regards to sexual reproductive health many young people don’t know, they want to know but they don’t have the right resources, they don’t know the places they can go to get those information, they don’t know people they can talk to in order to get those information.”
Williams spoke to The AUTHORITY at an event in Lagos where she taught her audience on the significance of Advocacy as a vital tool for bringing changes and tackling the myriad of challenges bedeviling sexual reproductive health system in Nigeria.
Williams called on Nigerians to ensure that youths have access to sexual reproductive information and services “I think it is high time for every stakeholder, parent, individual and non-governmental organization to come together to see how young people can have access to sexual reproductive health information and services that are nondiscriminatory, non-judgemental, and that which will of course guarantee their sexual health.”
On her topic she said “I gave them a brief understanding of what advocacy is, which is aimed at bringing about change, talking to decision makers to influence decisions that are being made concerning them, and to also make use of different tools like the media, policy brief, opinion, articles, different media to be able to advocate to policy- makers and decision-makers to bring about change.”
Speaking on issue of abortion as a means of population control she said “Well abortion is illegal in this country; that is one, personally I am not a supporter for abortion, I believe prevention is the best strategy. So if you can prevent you don’t have to abort and that is why I am a strong advocate for family planning especially for the young people who are sexually active.
“So for them they should actually be able to have access to family placing services and commodities, so that they can prevent themselves from getting pregnant, so that they don’t have to consider or getting themselves involved in of course unsafe abortion, because currently in the country abortion is illegal and most time they go to quacks and for people who are not professionals to have these things done some lose their lives in the process. For me family planning is the way to go,” Williams stated.
On how the youths should be made to know that family planning is not just for married people she said, “From the moment a 14 or 15 years girl start getting pregnant then they should start having a reality check as to what family planning actually is, because the term family planning doesn’t actually mean that it should only be for married people, although of course not every form of family planning is recommended for young people.
“However, young people who are already sexually active or young people who are married or cohabiting should be able to access at least the basic things like the condoms, that is easily accessible almost everywhere, so for me I will say that we should start creating that change to break down on the stereotype that family planning is just for married people,” Williams said.
On whether another name should be adopted for young people instead of family planning she said “Within the field I work in, we don’t use the term family planning so as to enable young people to relate better, so we use the term life planning instead, because we know that young people want to plan their lives, they want to have very good life, they don’t want to fall victim of teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and the rest.
“So using life planning, for us, has really worked because we now see young people who are sexually active take up different methods of family planning,” Williams added.
