New Telegraph

Women should have a say over their bodies – MHR

 
To celebrate the World Contraception Day, the Director of the Media Health and Rights (MHR) Initiative of Nigeria, Alu Azege has said that women should be given the final say over what happens to their body both physically and when it comes to reproduction.
To this end, Azege said women therefore deserve to be in the driving seat when it comes to taking decisions about their own bodies.
She made the call in a statement issued by MHR to mark this year’s World Contraceptive Day.
September 27 has been set aside to mark the World Contraceptive Day, an yearly event to remind women that they are important and vital members of the society.
 
“Contraception is synonymous with women. However, engagement with women in our community shows that many women and girls do not know about contraception. A woman’s total wellbeing starts from her bodily autonomy-the right to govern over her own body and make informed decisions about her reproductive health.
Universal knowledge of contraception as well as access to contraception are rudimentary determinants to women, and without these, their empowerment and gender equality remain elusive,” Azege said.
She continued that healthy families were a matter of choice and not chance and so the women had to take their own health into their own hands and decide on when they wanted to have children. She also pointed out that women should hold the power to decide how many children they wanted and the space they wanted between each child.
 
“Over the years, the world has experienced promising developments but also imperative setbacks affecting the right to sexual and reproductive health and rights albeit against Human rights law which stipulates that women must be free to decide when to be pregnant, how many children to have and how to space their pregnancies,” she said.
 
Azege continued that it is vital for women to plan their lives so that they would be able to live their lives well and contribute meaningfully to the society.
 
“During this celebration, MHR makes it clear that only girls and women who can plan their families have better opportunities to realise their potentials; they can pursue education and participate in and contribute to the economy. This will lead to a more prosperous, stable and equitable society. It is crucial to ensure that all women and girls, in all their diversity, have adequate knowledge, access to safe, effective and affordable methods of contraception of their choice including modern short-and-long acting contraceptives and other methods. Emergency contraception should also be allowed as well as any other means in order to avoid forced, unplanned and unwanted pregnancies,” she pointed out.
 
 

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