Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights information for young persons with disabilities in Nigeria is often limited due to so many barriers.
Currently in the country, persons with disabilities are faced with lots of challenges accessing healthcare services, particularly the problem of mobility as most of the buildings are physically inaccessible to them including most health facilities.
To this end, young persons with disabilities most times do not receive advice on HIV/AIDS, rape, sexual abuse, sexuality education, among others, as the clinics are physically difficult to get to for those having challenges of movement.
Similarly, material for information are not made available for those with visual impairments while healthcare providers themselves are unable to communicate in sign language.
In most cases, sexuality education is withheld from young persons with disabilities because the society tends to think that people with disability should be non-sexual while some people hold the misconception that they shouldn’t have fulfilling sex lives or have access to sexuality education.
To remove these barriers through increased awareness creation, Festus Fajemilo Foundation in collaboration with Centre for Youth Studies, has trained 170 secondary students also known as Adolescent advocates from 17 selected private secondary schools in Agege Education District of Lagos on sexuality education of young persons with disabilities in order to raise awareness of their sexual and reproductive health rights and challenges in their various schools and communities.
The adolescent advocates and their guidance counsellors were trained by the Foundation in partnership with the Center through A VOICE (OXFAM /HIVOS) sponsored project, tagged, ” Breaking All Barriers Project”.
Speaking at the project’ s closing ceremony in Lagos recently, which featured the graduation of the young sexual and reproductive health rights advocates, Leader of the Breaking All Barriers Project, Mr. Afolabi Fajemilo, said a lot were achieved through the training.
Fajemilo who is also Executive Director, Festus Fajemilo Foundation, revealed that over nine schools were impacted through the project as they increased the acceptance of students with
disabilities.
“I must say that the project is a huge success and we can all see the impact. The number of students with disabilities admitted into mainstream schools in the course of the project also increased. It has further checked the negative perception that people have about persons with disabilities . Again, members of the Breaking All Barriers Club are seen as role models by other students as they advocate the inclusion and the rights of persons with disabilities anywhere they go”, he said.
He called on the governor-elect of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu , to give priority to issues affecting persons with disabilities in the state and ensure their inclusion his policies and programs especially in the area of access to quality healthcare services, education and job creation.
In her keynote address, Tutor General/Permanent Secretary, Agege Education District I,who was represented at the occasion by a District Counsellor, Mrs Bolanle Owoo, appealed to parents with children living with disabilities to show love to them and stop seeing them as “useless
children.”
” Stop seeing your children with disabilities as useless. No child created by God is useless. Give every child irrespective of the challenge equal opportunity to thrive like others”, she
advised.
To further address the barriers faced by persons with disabilities in accessing healthcare services, some of the guidance counsellors and the adolescent advocates, urged the state government to employ sigh and language interpreters across all hospitals in the state for easy communication with healthcare providers.
They also want the government to make hospital structures more accessible to persons with
disabilities.
