Discussants at a one day programme organized to mark this year’s International Youth Day have attributed unwanted pregnancy, abortion among Nigerian youths to the huge gap of sexual communication between parents and their wards as they grow up.
They said most parents forbid communicating anything that has to do with sex in their homes to their growing children, hence they go elsewhere particularly the social media to get such sexual information and even get the wrong ones.
The programme to mark year’s International Youth Day with the theme: ‘Intergenerational Solidarity: Creating a World for All Ages’ was organized on Friday in Benin by Edo State Technical Working Group for Adolescent Health and Developent (STWGAYHD) in collaboration with Advocacy Core Group (ACG), Edo and other stakeholders including the Network of Reproductive Health Journalists of Nigeria.
One of the panel of discussants at the event, Comrade Abiola Daisy Igaga from Conference of Non-Governmnetal Organisation said most parents do not have anything to tell their children on reproductive health, rather they gave the scary information of getting pregnant if a man meets them.
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“Most mothers do not have what they can tell their children on reproductive health. In fact, my mother then will tell me that ‘if a man gets close to you, you will be pregnant,’ but this is not true. So, I did not have any information on reproductive health until I got to school,” she said.
Another discussant, Juliet Egwede from Edo State Technical Group on Adolescent and Youth Reproductive Health said parents and the society at large respond negatively to any discussion on sex by the young ones rather than enlightening them and telling them the right ways to go about it.
“The response from parents, when a child starts communication on reproductive health, has been negative. Even the society we are living in, when you talk about sex, the response is always negative. So, this makes young people shy away from talking about it particularly in public,” she said.
Continuing in the discussion, she said: “We need to talk about it at home. We are in the social media age where young ones go and learn most often in the negative, so, if we fail to teach them at home, they will go and learn elsewhere. So, as parents, if we have that communication relationship with our children about sex as they grow up, they will open up to us.”
Earlier in his welcome address, Dr. Bright Oniovokukor, Chairman, STWGAYHD, said one of the issues plaguing young people is inadequate access to reproductive health services, mostly, accurate information on reproductive health services and contraceptive service health.
He added: “Numerous factors such as parental influence, community and religious norms, etc are seen as significant barriers in affecting sexual reproductive health discussion. To address this social barrier hence we are having this International Dialogue and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health Services. We want to bridge the gap that we can close.”
He continued: “One is tempted to ask, where did we miss it; where does the gap lie? Can we identify these gaps for things to get better?”
In his goodwill message, Hillary Aghedo, Chairman, National Youth Council, Oredo Chapter, urged youths to join the movement of positive change that everyone in the country is yearning for.
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In her goodwill message, Bisi Akpaida, state coordinator, Network of Reproductive Health Journalists of Nigeria, said journalists are concerned about the reproductive health of the young ones hence media practitioners came together with a view to talking and enlightening them on reproductive health.
Discussants at the event all stressed the need for parents to all bridge the gap of sexual communication with their children with a view to guiding them aright in their sexual activities, as they said most of the young ones are sexually active hence no need to hiding anything from them.