Major Group for Children and Youth

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The Community Health Rights Network (COHERINET)

Enhancing Access to Comprehensive Sexual Reproductive Health not limited to Safe Abortion Services for Youths in the slums of Kampala district

Location: Uganda (Kampala City)

With the COVID -19 pandemic quarantine lock down in Uganda, female youths in the urban slums of Kampala are facing mushrooming challenges of access to sexual reproductive health and rights services which are requiring urgent redress.

In the Urban slums of Kampala, premarital sex is very common like in any other parts of Uganda with more than one in three never-married women aged 15–24 having had sex; adolescents and young adults are particularly at risk for unintended pregnancies leading to high levels of unplanned births, unsafe abortions, maternal injuries, teenage motherhood, deaths etc. It is paramount to note that many Ugandan young people of reproductive age are suffering severe morbidity often as a result of unsafe abortion (https://www.guttmacher.org/report/unintended-pregnancy-and-abortion-uganda) and further very important to note that young people in Uganda are beset by sexual and reproductive health challenges that endanger their ability to achieve their full potential as by age of 16 as 9.4 percent of them have begun childbearing and the percentage increases to 22.1 percent a year later. The negative social norms and limited investment in adolescent girl’s cultural and identity-based barriers often pose powerful barriers for young people’s access to health, education and income opportunities as gender inequality is indeed the most significant of all identity-based disadvantages (https://uganda.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/AYP_PolicyBrief%20%285%29.pdf).

With this ongoing pandemic lock down, combined with the above fundamentalism and backlashes of the social (beliefs and norms) and economic conservatisms there is further scarcity of provision, accessibility and availability of decentralized, quality, friendly, cost-effective, stigma-free, non-discriminative comprehensive sexual reproductive health and rights, not limited to safe abortion care services and reliable information for female youths in the slums of Kampala district.

As the social, political and economic factors have always fueled lack of access, availability and provision of comprehensive sexual reproductive health services, more especially safe abortion services at the community grass roots levels, the COVID-19 pandemic lock down has created more havoc for female youths leading them to use clandestine methods to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Because of this pandemic, female youths are totally cut off from even the prior accessible and available comprehensive sexual reproductive health services not limited to safe abortion services (MA/MVA) due to lack means of transport, money to pay for the services, fear of contracting the infection and fear for arrest of the not easily explainable cause for the movement due to abortion stigma.

The current COVID-19 pandemic, backed up by the sexual reproductive health stigma from the social, political and economic factors is highly hindering the prior few friendly comprehensive sexual reproductive health not limited to safe abortion service providers in the slums of Kampala from offering services to the vulnerable female youths due to fear of contracting the infection, lack of means of transport stock outs, etc.

The COVID -19 pandemic is causing a lot of uncertainties to the lives of these already female youths thus requiring urgent multiple interventions to save the perishing lives in the slums of Kampala district.

As avenues to mitigate the challenges of accessibility, availability and provision of comprehensive sexual reproductive health not limited to safe abortion services during this COVID 19 pandemic, we are proposing to use the acquired experiences from the previous and ongoing projects i.e.

to promote utilization of our existing Aunt KAKI sexual reproductive health and rights not limited to abortion toll-free helpline number on the need to access reliable information on medical abortion, counseling, contraceptives etc. among 22243 female youths; access and provision to health services through home deliveries of essential sexual reproductive health commodities like condoms, emergency pills, pill plans, MA pills, pregnancy test strips, sanitary pads etc.); quick referral and pick up for emergency comprehensive sexual reproductive health services using the purchased motorcycles and mobile TukuTuku motor cycle ambulances among 10234 female youths from the slums of Kampala district.

We shall raise awareness and sensitization on the COVID-19 pandemic, how to prevent unwanted pregnancies, challenges that result from use of clandestine methods to terminate unwanted pregnancies, how to access to safe comprehensive sexual reproductive health and rights services, promotion of Aunt KAKI SRHR toll free helpline number during this alarming COVID-19 pandemic through developing, printing and distributing of information, education and communication materials (25,000 posters, 1000 T-shirts, 30 PVC horizontal burners) among the community people and community health service providers and use of media through holding 20 radio and 6 television talk shows, utilization of social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter).

We propose to innovatively enhance access to friendly comprehensive sexual reproductive health and rights services through mapping, equipping and creating an emergency referral network of 10 decentralized community grass roots levels based friendly health service centers with basic essential comprehensive sexual reproductive health commodities from which female youths can easily access quality friendly health services.

We propose to fight the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic through purchasing and distributing of essential basic commodities that will include protective gears (1000 cartons of sanitizers, 800 boxes of masks, 100 boxes of gloves, 50 pieces temperature monitoring machines) and offer food supplies to 5000 vulnerable female youths (50,000 kg of maize flour, 25,000 kg of sugar, 50,000 kg of rice, 10,000 bars of soap, 50,000 kg of beans etc).

We affirm that we shall save lives of female youths from the slums of Kampala during this COVID -19 pandemic periods through innovatively enhancing access, provision and availability to quality friendly comprehensive sexual reproductive health not limited to abortion care services and reliable information.

Support

In reference to our proposed concept outline we already have an operational Aunt KAKI SRHR toll free helpline. We are using platforms like this one to fund raise for around US dollars 101,000 to help us put into action our proposed initiative.

Other needs: Volunteers, Access to information, Social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter), Empowered human resources.

See more:

Web: https://www.coherinetug.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coherinet  

Twitter: @coherinet 

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClIH5XYFv8GB62ylpWINqXw?view_as=subscriber

For more information contact covid19@unmgcy.org