By Cyriacus Nnaji
Initiative to Resist Institutional Slavery and Exploitation (IRISE) has taken the campaign for Reproductive Health and Family Planning to Lagos State communities, stressing more on the right of women to make vital decisions on health matters concerning them.
This year’s campaign which commenced in February, 2024 has seen IRISE move to mostly marginalized communities. Between September 21 and 22, IRISE mobilized and educated mostly low income and marginalized urban poor living at Lafenwa community in Ejigbo, Ilasa and Okota areas, having being in Ajegunle communities in Ajeromi/Ifelodun in February this year. The campaign deeply resonated emotionally with participants through impactful theatre performances, while also providing access to counseling, testing, and ongoing support.
Omodele Ibitoye Ejeh, the Executive Director of IRISE, the One Billion Rising Coordinator in Nigeria and a Professional Counselor with over 22 years of experience, speaking on what informed her organising the campaign said “The campaign titled in Yoruba, “To Bà Sé Wo”, meaning, If It Is You, is looking at sexual reproductive health, education and right, and we are actually focusing on stigmatization from abortion and death from unsafe abortion.”
Ejeh who is an Area Reference Person for an International Counseling Community said that due to the fact that a lot of women and young women of reproductive age die from unsafe abortion and because of negative religious beliefs and societal stigma, they coined the theme of the campaign from the point of view of empathy. “If you are in such situation, if it was you what would you do? Would you also take that route of safe abortion procedure or would you rather say Oh because of stigma let me stay and use clandestine unsafe means that can either injure ok kill myself, or just stay and bear this burden of injuries and pains and all that. What would you do? So that was how the project was formed.” This Campaign focuses on empowering women and girls and their communities to make informed choices about women’s health, with the goal of reducing mortality and preventing injury
She stated that IRISE has taken the campaign to five communities in Lagos beginning from February. “IRISE has taken this to five communities, from February to this September, so we have gone to communities in Ajegunle, Lafenwa in Ejigbo, Ilasa and today we are at Okota. And we actually take our message to the most marginalized women in those low income communities who don’t have access to information because this is valid safe information.”
On whether the campaign is an advocacy for abortion she answered, “I don’t want to say it is an advocacy for abortion, I would rather say, it is a campaign to enable women and girls live healthier and happier lives. So abortion right should be at the core of health rights because abortion is people’s true life stories, the experiences, the procedures and everything are people’s true life stories which have to be told and not covered under the carpet.”
On the number of people she has been able to reach with her campaign, she responded that the result surpassed her initial expectations. “Only yesterday we reached about 500 people as against what we planned. Our plan was to reach 90 women and girls of reproductive age in each of the communities visited, at Ejigbo we had about one hundred and something, but when we got to Ilasa, it was something else, we calculated over 300 women and girls. And here at Okota we have close to 300 women. So we have done more than what we actually set out to achieve and we are happy about that.”
Omodele Ejeh therefore, advised the women to speak up, to come out to learn and get educated. “My message to women is to keep supporting each other, not to be silent and not to allow themselves to be silenced by stigma or whatever the society is doing to them, because the society has a way of silencing women from speaking up about their experiences. I am encouraging women to speak up, to come out and learn, get educated and also be part of the advocacy and be champions of their communities for better lives for women just like themselves.”
Charles Christopher, a Public Health Practitioner on his part, educated the communities on their sexual health and rights; he made them to understand that they have the liberty to make informed decisions regarding their health. He also acquainted them with knowledge about their rights concerning their health. He added that a lot of people have made poor choices, while some of them actually don’t even believe they have right to decision-making about their health. He told his listeners that the decision regarding their health is their right.
He said, “Some of the women don’t even know about family planning, some know about it but they don’t even think that they have the right to make choices concerning family planning. We also try to educate them on safe abortion practices. There is a high rate of young people dying because of unsafe abortion practices. We are trying to make them understand they can actually make better decision regarding that.
“We are also trying to make them understand that there is no stigma in making the right choices. It is better for one to be alive than to pass on in shame or trying to hide shame. Yes that is why we are here to get the right information, and also to make them understand that contraceptive are very good tools to prevent pregnancy,” Christopher stated.
Another Reproductive Health Officer from Alimosho, Mr. Damilola also sensitized the women on their sexual reproductive health and what they need to know about their health, starting from childhood, puberty and to when they get old. “A whole lot of them have issues they don’t even know how to go about them, some of them have issues with their health, menstrual cycle, some don’t even know their menstrual cycle, some have infections and they have been using all sorts of drugs, medications, and for one reason or the other, they believe, these things are not working or not going, so one of the things we did was to educate them, sensitise them on the dangers of some of the practices they have engaged in and what are the right steps they need to take.
“And one of the things we told them is that once you notice that you have an infection don’t self-medicate, go to a clinic, get medications and before you get medication, make sure you see a medical expert, let them run a test on you, once they run a test, the test result will determine which infection you are having and what medication is appropriate for you,” Damilola stated.
Speaking on rape, he disclosed that rape is not only a crime, it is a violation of fundamental human right, aside that, rape is an abuse of power by whichever gender, be it male or females, “Whoever the culprit is and for every individual, we have rights that protect us, and rape is not only when there is use of force, as people perceive it to be, and that is what we always tell young people that consent is always important. And again consent can be withdrawn at any point in time, even the person that consented earlier can still withdraw his or her consent and once this consent is withdrawn and you still go ahead and have canal knowledge of that person, it is termed rape. And that is why we tell people that rape is a violation of human right and they should always desist from it.”
One of the women, a trader, who participated in the campaign Eniola Adeshina said she learnt a lot and thanked IRISE for what it is doing. “I learnt a lot and it will help a lot of us women who are still having children. It will also help the younger ladies to know what they are doing, because some women will sleep with men and after we will be hearing they have different disease, infection and even pregnancy and go and terminate it in another way, that may even damage their stomach, the womb and a lot of things, and many die as a result which is not good. The economy is also bad, when you plan your family, two or three Children, you will be free, you will look good and your children will look good, not having 8,9, 10, that is not good. God bless you and your company.”
For Adewale Habibat, a young lady, another participant said, “I learnt about we ladies speaking out, about what we are going through and how to take care of ourselves. I also learnt that a virgin can get infection. Not just when you have sex with a guy, but today I learnt you can get infection through your period by not maintaining appropriate hygiene. The food we eat also determines if we are healthy or not. We lady we have a soft heart, we are after what we get from guys, we are only moved by what we hear and by what we see afterwards the blame comes to us, that we are wayward, which we are not.”
Lemilekun Ojola, a petty trader, said she has learnt a lot at the sensitisation, “I like family planning because I did the implant, the one that lasts for five years, and it is good, it really worked for me. I did not get fat, I didn’t sick, I have four children before I did that thing. And I just want to thank IRISE, the people that brought this campaign to this place.
