ACCRA, — Through their efforts, African countries have been recording success in the empowerment of women, Sam Ntelamo, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) Resident Representative to the African Union and United Nations Economic Commission on Africa, has said.
According to him unlike decades ago, many more African women were getting into the political space while many others are rising to the top of the academic ladder.
For a long time, he observed Africa didn’t have many women in the political space and issues about sexual and gender-based violence were rampant on the continent; while there was very limited number of young girls in school.
“Now to the contrary, over the last 10 years, we have seen some notable improvements. If you look through what is going on in other countries, like parliament that has more than 50 percent of women representation which is a good signal,” Ntelamno added in an interview late Wednesday.
Added to that, he praised the continent for the increase in the school enrolments in most countries with the trend where more young girls were going to school and even completing their primary, secondary and obviously tertiary education.”
The official however urged African countries to work harder to end the high level of gender based violence on the continent and educating both young boys and girls on reproductive health issues as a safeguard against unwanted pregnancies as well as sexually transmitted diseases.
“Around the issues of gender-based violence, this is where we need to find some real strength. We need to battle and make sure that our women are not subjected to sexual and gender-based violence
“The essence behind comprehensive sexual education if you like is actually to empower both young girls and young boys,” he stressed.
The IPPF held training workshops in Accra Ghana on Tuesday and Wednesday for about 25 journalists drawn from La Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroun, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Kenya in addition to Ghanaian journalists in on the way to bring out issues of gender and sex related violence in their write-ups.
Erica Ehiamah, female student of Ghana Institute of Journalism, pointed out that with the right information on sexual and reproductive health education, young females could make the right choices when it comes to sexual behavior.
“Comprehensive sexuality education and sexual reproductive health rights are issues that when taken into consideration can help society. if you are able to control young adolescents by giving them the necessary information to enable them make informed decisions
“Then they may not be involved in acts like getting pregnant, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions,” she explained.
On the training offered by IPPF for the journalists Ms. Ehiamah said it was very useful as it would create the awareness among media practitioners on the issues affecting young people.
“I think this training is a good initiative by IPPF and other organizations to help journalists in their reportage when it comes to reproductive sexual rights and other related issues,: she added.
She noted; “Sometimes you realize that journalists do not touch on some key points and even use terminologies so well for people in our communities to understand the real things that are happening in our communities.”
“I think it’s been great, touching on SRHR and comprehensive sexuality education and a whole lot. This is going to guide us on our reportage on these issues,” the student journalist explained.
During the training which studied the key findings of the State of the African Women Report was studied, Advocacy Officer of the Right by her campaign, Mark Okundi, explained that the workshop aimed at training and incorporated journalists into the right by her campaign.
“So we had training with journalists and we’ve just taken them through the basics and what it takes to report on sexual reproductive health and rights and also committed to be right by her champions,” he added.
The participating journalists participated in the launch of the Rights by Her campaign and signed the signatures in support of the campaign.
“Through the barrel of the pen and what it takes us journalists we are going to be champions and raise our voices concerning women rights issues based on the commitments made by our leaders in the Maputo Declaration,” Okundi added.