By Sodiq Ojuroungbe
A Public Health Physician, Dr Omotunde Odanye says providing women access to family planning will empower them and help in reducing gender-based violence.
The physician explained that family planning includes providing comprehensive life knowledge and services, such as life skills and repositioning skills, which would enable women to defend themselves against inequalities and all forms of discrimination.
She said this on Wednesday, during a virtual conference organised by the Network of Reproductive Health Journalists in Nigeria with the theme; ‘Unite, Invest to prevent violence against women and girls’.
The conference is in commemoration of the global 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence celebrated from 5th November to 10th December.
Odanye, who is the Lagos State Program Manager of The Challenge Initiative, noted that unintended pregnancies and lack of family planning options could sometimes lead to stress within families, potentially exacerbating domestic violence.
She, however, maintained that family planning would allow couples to make joint decisions about their family size and this will in return foster healthy relationships.
According to her, family planning helps in improving overall well-being, educational attainment and economic empowerment of women.
She affirmed that family planning remains a crucial step towards achieving gender equality and preventing violence.
She further said, “ We need to adopt family planning as a lifestyle. Giving women access can help empower them and enable them towards gender equality and also prevent violence.
“For the girl, a girl trying to say no to sexual advances can cause domestic and sexual violence. Early child marriage, girl child labour all these could predispose her to SGBV.
“Giving her comprehensive life information and services, which includes giving her life skills, repositioning skills, how to say no, when to say no, and how to mean it, self-control, and self-assertion, all these are skills that are part of the family planning, in ensuring that she is empowered towards empowering herself and which in turn will lead to gender equality and violence prevention.
“How will FP do all this? Family planning will enable the girl child from education or the woman to further her education. This will, in turn, improve our economic independence and empowerment. We have healthier women and girls, better relationships and families.
“Furthermore, all these will translate into gender equality because it will give the woman and the girl child equal access to all opportunities that will make them not overly dependent. It will also educate them, improve their mind, and give them all that they need to reach their life goals, improve themselves, and make better strategic decisions.
“This of course will also enable violence prevention because, at the end of this, the individual is in power to make better, better decisions. And then the other, the perpetrator knows that this person is equipped with information that he needs and access to resources, to fight back, to speak up, or say no to violence.
“Also, family planning impacts the society and nation as a whole. And all these will further push us towards gender equality and violence prevention.”
Speaking on how to maximise family planning as a tool to address gender inequalities and domestic violence, the physician added, “First of all, we look at the government, what can the government do? They can create more enabling policies. They can increase commitment to implementing existing policies and frameworks that promote women’s rights, including reproductive health rights.
“They can invest more in family planning programmes at all levels to ensure access to affordable and comprehensive family planning information.
“They can also help to implement and use targeted health information and not leave the boys and men.
“Our youth advocates can also speak up for the girls’ rights, and also speak about policy information. We ensure that the girl has a right to quality information and service, without discrimination, age, or marital status.
“Our healthcare providers can also help provide a family service provision without bias, they can help to ensure that we have access to this critical service.
“They can also support women when they experience possible side effects because women experience side effects. The provider has the responsibility of equipping her and taking her throughout the process.”
On how non-governmental institutions can contribute, Odanye said foundations must be ready to extend investment to family planning, like the way they support other programmes and issues.
She further said, “The group should continue to support the government and the effort to ensure that each girl and each woman and their family benefits from these great investments.
“On an individual level, women themselves seek correct information from the right source. All women should get access to FP. Families should prioritise the physical, mental, social, and economic wellbeing of the woman and the girl child.”
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