Media urged to champion the cause of sexual and reproductive rights

Journalists in the country have been called to lead the campaign on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) issues in the country.

This is to help ensure that premium is placed on relating stories that advance the cause of women and girls and to also ensure government lives up to its commitments.

At a training workshop organized in Accra by the International Planned Parenthood Federation Africa Region (IPPF-AR) in association with the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), media practitioners were taken through a curriculum that was designed to give them comprehensive insights into SRHR and its related impact on the country's development.

The workshop formed part of an ongoing Right By Her Campaign that seeks to reinforce implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (christened the Maputo Protocol, adopted in 2003) and the Maputo Plan of Action (MPoA) which is the implementation framework for the Continental Policy Framework on SRHR, across Africa at the continental, regional, national and sub-national levels.

Processes to achieve this objective include strengthening the capacities of civil society organisations (CSOs) in terms of knowledge on women and girls' rights in SRHR and in terms of advocacy strategies and capacity to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes.

'Right By Her', launched in Kenya in 2017 and more recently in Ghana, is a critical part of the State of African Women Campaign project aimed at 'contributing to secure, realise and extending women's rights enshrined in African Union (AU) policies in African countries.'

It is premised on the reality that amidst numerous continental and international commitments undertaken by governments on the promotion of gender equality, women and girls' rights, the dire conditions that prevail against women and hinder their development still exist in no subtle forms.

The campaign is focused greatly on enhancing CSO and other change agents' potentials to have the needed impact in their spheres of advocacy. The campaign emphasises four topical areas, notably Gender-based Violence Against Women (GVAW) Harmful practices (in particular child marriage and Female Genital Mutilation), Reproductive Rights (SRH) as well as HIV and AIDS.

Included in the training curriculum is a general mapping out of health reporting, sensitive health issues affecting the continent on regional and national levels, policies and regulations regarding health care and health systems, overview of regional and international conventions ratified by various countries on the continent such as the Maputo Protocols.

The course also focused on the 'Right By Her' Campaign objectives of sexual and reproductive health and rights, after which journalists were taken through needful insights regarding reporting on epidemics, emergency outbreaks and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), health policies and more importantly avoiding the myths and misconceptions in reporting health in a society especially ingrained in traditional non-scientific beliefs.

Moreover, to achieve the necessary impact from their communications, reporters were urged to recognize the need to carefully consider cultural, gender and religious sensitivity in their work, aspire to the highest ethical standards and be skillful with the use of appropriate data and statistics in their deliveries.

Sexual and reproductive health has been described as fundamental, so basic it is the first to be encountered by anyone, as such the need to build on SRHR knowledge and services designed to empower individuals to make informed decisions.

Reproduction, as stressed by the Chief Executive of the National Population Council, Dr Leticia Appiah at the workshop, should be done efficiently and should not undermine production as the two unavoidably complement each other in the development process of every society.

That reproduction is a continuum automatically makes SRHR an inevitable part of human and social development and experts have advised it should be approached, discussed and communicated effectively to achieve the desired outcomes.

Dr Appiah said every national effort is made with the population in mind, who are along some point in the cycle of life beneficiaries, partners and consequently leaders of the society. 'Give out the information to the people so they can make informed decisions because investing in SRHR is so important to have healthy childhoods, adolescence and adulthood,' she noted.

GNA

By Deborah Apetorgbor, GNA