Family Planning: Youth And Challenge Of Accessing Services

In Nigeria, like in most countries, the level of contraceptive use has risen slowly over the years. It is no longer news that there are women without access to family planning services.

Nigeria with a young population with majority below the age of 25 years, with 22 percent of the population between the ages of 10- 19 years.

Advertisement

Reports show that an estimated 222 million women in developing countries, that would like to space or limit their pregnancies, are not using a contraceptive method

Global evidence shows that young girls bear a higher burden of maternal mortality and morbidity as data shows that the average age at sexual debut is roughly 15 years of age among adolescent mothers in Nigeria according to National Demographic Health Survey, (NDHS 2003, 2008, 2013).

The aational adolescent fertility rate in Nigeria is 122 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 years. In the North Western States, it is as high as 171 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 years.

Data on Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) outcomes in Nigeria highlights the importance of focusing on adolescents. At 576 maternal death per 1,000 live births, Nigeria accounts for 14 percent of the global burden of maternal mortality (NDHS 2013/WHO 2014).

Advertisement

To curb maternal mortality, family planning has been marked to save lives of millions of mothers and their children as well as improved the well-being of families and communities.

To this end, the Lagos State government with support from partners and other donor agencies put in place youth friendly centers to provide SRH services.

But, these centers are not what they seem as there are gaps limiting youth access to contraception as family planning providers often time puts young people away.

These are gaps however limiting access to family planning through; provider bias, attitude of the family planning officer, religious sentiments, poor knowledge on issues of sexuality, awareness, lack of confidentiality in service delivery, amongst others.

Most young persons who are sexually active in Lagos state are not armed with adequate information on the different method of contraception available for use.

Advertisement

At a 3-day capacity building workshop on investigative journalism organized by Pathfinder International Nigeria, in Lagos, some Lagos based adolescents who spoke to journalists have expressed dismay over the attitude of some family planning providers.

Some adolescents who visited Ikotun, Alimosho and Agege youth friendly Centres complained of poor counseling, knowledge by the family planning counsellors.

Medina Mustapha, a 25-year old graduate of Business Admin, said the service provider’s first question was on her age bracket adding that “on learning I have three boy-friends at 25, the body language changed outside religious concerns and countenance, i was not given an opportunity of seeing a condom or counselled properly on other options of contraception, so, I had to leave.

Miss Mustapha said the family planning providers welcome was not warm as anticipated, hence wondering if it should have been better to have unplanned pregnancy to receive required attention at family planning units of Public Healthcare Centre (PHC) despite being sexually active.

For Roseline Joseph, 22, who acknowledged being sexually active lamented that the health service provider, she accosted at the Hello Lagos Life planning centre, was visibly furious on noticing she is a Catholic, did not give her the required attention and courtesy of offering her a seat or any attempt to make her to relax before supposed grilling.

Joseph said that in the course of their tensed-discussion, she understood that both female and male condoms were available at the facility, but she was not given the female condom which she had demanded but a male condom was offered to her.

Advertisement

She decided to take away the male condom roll-of-four but concerned that at her back, she became subject of gossip.

A 20-year makeup artist, Ayomide Akande, said the PHC centre she visited was near her community and because of their poor responses to her questions as a teenager wanting to access family planning services, she had to switch role from personal inquiry to on errand for her mother.

She was not shown any options of family planning but told that for her to access any available service, must be during ovulation, which family planning expert, Mrs. Abiola Adekoya, disagreed with, though some pregnant women still ovulate whilst pregnant.

Adekoya said that these service providers in these cases were bad examples and opposite of what they should be, especially in the area of counselling these youths by sharing available options of contraception with them and possibly allow these youths make informed decision.

She however insisted that those service providers need to be trained in the right contemporary path to help the teeming youth who may come across them and added that with the narratives aforementioned, these youngsters may not likely return to the centres again eventually even when they may be ready for family planning, describing it as a missed opportunities to win for family planning and better equip the youth.

The Country Director, Pathfinder International Nigeria, Dr. Farouk Jega, said it would make a lot of difference in the nation’s health care sector to have knowledgeable family planning providers in healthcare centres.

Jega said well-informed service providers will bring about enormous change towards building trust in the adoption of family planning and increasing uptake in the country and make a lot of difference.

He said that every woman, especially in developing economies like Nigeria deserves quality family planning information so as to make informed decision, stating that, “every woman no matter the age has the right to know and access quality family planning information.”

Pathfinder International Nigeria insisted that there should be no coercion on the part of women as far as issues on family planning is concerned but should be armed with quality family planning information.

The Program Officer, Pathfinder International, Kosi Izundu, while presenting a topic on ‘Youth And Adolescent Access To Family Planning’ said the major challenges youth face in accessing family planning are structural barriers such as laws and policies requesting parental consent.

She added that socio-cultural barriers such as restrictive norms and stigma around adolescents and youth sexuality and individual barriers such as young people limited or incorrect knowledge of Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH).

Though government has tried in terms of policies and laws to advance SRH, Izundu said there is need for government to fully implement those policies.

The Lagos State Coordinator, Life Planning for Adolescents and Youths (LPAY), Abiodun Ajayi presented the topic: ‘Youth and Adolescent access to family planning in Lagos State’, said the population of the State is about 23 million with young people aged 15-24 constituting over 4 million.

He said the unmet sexual and reproductive health needs of young persons in Lagos State is very huge, adding that according the NDHS 2013, only 38.4 per cent of women aged 20-24, who are in marriage/union are currently using a contraceptive method while 12.3 percent of these women have an unmet need for family planning.

The risk according to Abiodun is that sexual behavior among young people is leading to unplanned pregnancy, out of school and baby dumping amongst others.

Some of the barriers to youth access to family planning services according to him are; lack of access to adequate and accurate life planning information and services, providers’ bias, religious doctrine as well as policies barriers.

To tackle those issues, Abiodun said, government should integrate youth friendly family planning services in all PHCs that meet their needs; community, religious and traditional leaders should speak positively about SRH of young people; parents should engage their children on SRH information and advocacy efforts should be made to key players by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

Leave a comment

Advertisement