By Chidimma B. Ikenna Imo Eze
National Population Commission (NPC), has expressed fear over the rising cases of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease in the society, following the closure of schools across Nigeria due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
NPC federal commissioner, Hon. Darlington Okereke, raised the alarm on Friday July 17, during a press conference in Abakaliki to mark the 2020 World Population day celebrated July 11, of every year.
Okereke was represented by the State Director of the commission in the state, Hon. Edward Ogbu.
He stated that there has been a noticeable increase in gender-based violence ranging from rape to physical and emotional assaults on girls.
According to him, In the absence of schooling, more girls are likely to drop out of school and other consequences could include early marriage and high fertility, morbidity and maternal mortality, abortion and low self-esteem.
The event with the theme: Putting the Brakes on COVID-19: How to Safeguard the Health and Rights of Women and Girls Now, was part of an international awareness campaign that is celebrated annually to beam global attention on the urgency and importance of population issues universally.
The commissioner revealed that the plight of girls and women have been worsened with limited access to health facilities due to lockdown.
COVID-19 did not make it easy for women to access and utilize reproductive health facilities, especially as the logistics of getting to health facilities were negatively impacted, he added.
Okereke pointed out that low usage of contraceptives, as well as unmet needs for family planning were major causes of Sexually Transmitted Infections(STIs) due to unprotected sex, unwanted pregnancies, and unsafe abortions.
Adding that the COVID 19 lockdown has paralyzed the informal sector of economy, which women were mainly employed in.
“Although the pandemic is global, some categories of persons are more affected, for example, the informal sector employ 80 percent of Nigerians and it is mainly made of daily paid workers who are worse hit by the lockdown.
“It is pertinent to mention that because most women in Nigeria are employed in the informal sector, COVID 19 lockdown impacted negatively on them than their male counterparts”, he stated.
He commended the present government for initiating numerous programmes to end the practices that negate the rights of women and girls.
Stating, “some of these programmes include the Better Education Service Delivery Programme for Result (BESDA) aimed at rescuing the number of out of school children in 17 states of the federation”.
He assured the commission’s continued collaboration with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and other development partners to generate data to address cases of womens health, nutrition, educational attainment and sexual harassment, through surveys and researches such as Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys, Nigeria Education Data Survey 2020, Verbal autopsy and social autopsy survey among others.
