Women canvass reproductive health, family planning in Taraba

Women have advocated for reproductive health, child spacing and family planning in the 16 local councils of Taraba.

According to them, observance of family planning methods would reduce the high infant and maternal rate in the state.

Galvanised by the Social Behavourial Change (SBCC) Committee led by the Galadima of Muri, Alhaji Abbas Tukur; the leadership of The Challenge Initiative (TCI) as well as the State Primary Health Care Development Agency (TSPHCDA), the women, being now more conscious of their health and children, have taken the advocacy to the nooks and crannies of the state, urging the gender to embrace family planning irrespective of religion, tribe and cultural affiliations.

The State Programme Coordinator of TCI, Dr. Sarki Othman, said the state government was committed to selling the idea convincingly to the citizens.

In the same vein, the State Technical Support Lead for Demand Generation (STSL, DG), Victoria Mohammed Ibe, lauded TSPHCDA’s efforts, enthusing that the teething hiccups would be overcome soon.

She urged husbands to support their wives in enthroning healthy homes.

One of the participants, Hanatu Asebe, in her early 30s, noted that had the message been known to her before now, her looks and appearances would have been relatively younger early childbirths notwithstanding.

Citing several women of her age who had died during childbirths, she submitted: “ I am now convinced that most of them would have still been alive if the sensitisation we have gotten from these people (TCI and TSPHCDA) were brought to us early.”

Asebe added: “Since we have realised our mistakes, we have now decided to take it as a responsibility among ourselves to go out and speak to our fellow women and even the men on the need to always give enough gap before taking in.”

The SBCC chair, who is also the heir apparent to the traditional stool of the Muri Emirate, Tukur, expressed joy that his health dream for the women was fast becoming a reality.