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Medical experts have called for more awareness about the dangers of unsafe abortions among young people in Osun State.
The experts who made the call on Tuesday during a workshop on stakeholders’ co-creation to address unsafe abortion, harped on the need for young people to have the right sexual education to prevent unplanned pregnancies.
The workshop, which was sponsored by the African Coalition for Research and Communication on Abortion, was held at the main hall of the Ministry of Women Affairs, Children and Social Welfare, to validate the research findings on unsafe abortion.
Speaking during the programme, the lead researcher, Dr Olutoyin Ikuteyijo, said findings showed that there was still a lack of adequate awareness among young people about unsafe abortion.
Dr. Ikuteyijo, who is a lecturer at the Department of Public Health, Osun State University, said Osun is one of the prevalent states when it comes to unplanned pregnancies among young people, adding that the workshop was to find a lasting solution to the problem.
According to her, “There have been a lot of unplanned pregnancies among adolescents in Osun State. Data from the NDHS shows that Osun State is one of the most prevalent states when it comes to unplanned pregnancies among young people. “We are now bringing the stakeholders together to find a lasting solution to the issue of unsafe abortions that is predominant among young people. “There are so many factors that contribute to this challenge among young people. The first one is a lack of awareness because we still find it as one of the major concerns of young people.
“Also, the law is still resistant to young people accessing health facilities when it comes to unwanted pregnancy.”
Speaking further, Dr. Ikuteyijo said there was a need for sexual education to be taken out of the clinic and made a standalone institution.
There is a need for youth-friendly sexual education to be taken out of the clinic because of the stigma. The community would want to ask questions, but if it is a standalone institution that anybody can come to, it will really assist our young people.
“Sexual education right from home is very important, but it must be presented in the right way. The Osun State Government should also make sexual education stand alone and present it to everyone without gender bias,” she added.
In his contributions, the Director of Public Health, Ministry of Health, Osun State, Dr Akeem Bello, said the state was working to ensure that young people were fully enlightened on sex education.
Dr Bello said: “We need to create awareness and engage our people. That is part of what we are doing today. Research is part of awareness creation because many people don’t know the implications of unsafe abortion.
Sex education is very important to our children.
“We’ve had a series of training and workshops for our health workers on how to prevent safe abortions and the steps to take in performing safe abortions.
“After today’s workshop, we need to create more awareness, especially at the grassroots. We have to go into communities and schools to target our adolescents in order to achieve our goals.”
A former Executive Secretary of the Osun Health Insurance Agency, Dr. Adeniyi Oginni, while speaking at the workshop, said one of the key solutions to unsafe abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Dr. Oginni, who is the Head of Department, Public Health, Redeemer’s University, Ede, spoke on the need to enlighten and educate communities and teach them how to live a healthy lifestyle.
He said: “Basically, I am a preventive and social medicine person, and I believe more in prevention rather than cure. I would rather be talking from the viewpoint of preventing unwanted pregnancies rather than talking about procuring safe abortion.
“Although there are some cases where abortion is legally and medically indicated, we have criminal and medical abortions. I prefer that we prevent unsafe abortion by preventing unwanted pregnancies.
“We need to communicate, inform, enlighten and educate our communities and teach them how to live a healthy lifestyle. However, in the case of medical abortions, we need to teach them how to get this done in standard hospitals and health facilities, where we have trained personnel.”
Present at the events were various nongovernmental organisations, parents, health providers and religious leaders, including young ones.
