By STANSLOUS NGOSA –
MANY youths are confused by different safe sex messages the media and various organisations give out in regards to Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH). Limited and lack of information on SRH as well as limited access to youth friendly health services in many communities has negatively impacted on reproductive health.
Young people with special needs (differently abled) have particular challenges accessing SRH services.
Against this background, Zambia All Party Parliamentarian Group on Population and Development (ZAPPD) chairperson Highvie Hamududu said there is for adequate budgetary allocation towards SRH issue because of its impact on human development.
For example, Mr Hamududu said the statistics of teenage pregnancies were alarming and needed urgent solution.
Mr Hamududu said this during an IPAS organised Youth-Policy Maker Dialogue between Members of Parliamnet who are also members of ZAPPD in Lusaka recently.
“We need to pump more resources in the SRH because the issue has huge bearing on the economic development of the country,” Mr Hamududu said.
IPAS Youth Cordinator Nana Zulu was concerned with the packaging of the majority of love movies which ignores the consequences of, for instance, someone having multiple partners.
Ms Zulu said such movies have a huge influence on the youths because they want experiment what they watch.
Ipas is an international non-profit making organization working in the field of women’s health and rights.
Over the last 40 years, Ipas has worked to end deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion throughout the world.
Ipas believes that no woman should have to risk her life or health because she lacks safe reproductive health choices.
Ms Zulu, however, said the Government should domesticate the international conventions it has ratified to.
Ms Zulu said Zambia need to recognise and affirm the critical importance of sexual and reproductive health and rights and the ICPD Programme of Action to the achievement of all the Millennium Development Goals, in particular MDG five on improving maternal health.
“Zambia has ratified to so many international conventions on reproduction health but the implementation aspect has been very slow,” Ms Zulu said.
Generation Alive programmes coordinator Womba Wanki said there is need for more political will towards the implementation of the conventions ratified and translating them into national policies.
Ms Wanki said there is need to address the barriers that young people face in accessing sexual and reproductive health information and services
Mazabuka Member of Parliament, Garry Nkombo, urged families and communities to stop stigmatising pregnant girls.
He said most unsafe abortion cases were currently emanating from segregations and stigmatising the girls who fall pregnant.
“There is need to find more preventive measures that will circumvent unsafe abortion in Zambia. We also need to repeal laws that circumvent unsafe abortion in our country in order to address the scourge,” he said.
Mr Nkombo, however, urged parents and guardians to be responsible by openly discussing with their girl children the dangers of unsafe abortion.
Shiwang’andu Member of Parliament Stephen Kampyongo said there is need to revise Zambia’s termination of pregnancy Act of 1972 to address increasing levels of unsafe abortions among girls and young women in the country.
Mr Kampyongo said unsafe abortions were high in rural areas because girls did not have access to medical doctors, who by law would approve one’s safe termination of pregnancy because of inadequate medical personnel in those areas.
He said there is need to look at the current pieces of legislation with regard to unsafe abortion because the issue of having three certified medical doctors to approve or allow our girls to terminate pregnancies was not helpful especially for rural areas.
Mr Kampyongo who home affairs deputy minister, said conditions that were required before one could undergo safe abortions were impossible in such areas and that they were contributing factors to the increase of unsafe abortions in Zambia.
He emphasised the need to set up strong policies that would provide for strong deterrent measures on individuals who were administering unsafe abortion concoctions on girls and young women in Zambia.
Swebby Macha a Gynecologist at University Teaching Hospital said Zambia is one of the countries that have a liberal law on abortion but was concerned with Article 28 in the Draft Constitution which states that ‘every person has a right to life, which begins at conception’Dr Macha said the article could lead to restrictions on women’s reproductive health services, including some types of contraception.
He said the Article will not be in line with many human rights treaties to which Zambia is a signatory.
Dr Macha said there was generally no consensus as to when life begins among religious, medical, or traditional authorities and a controversial article such as article 28 should not find itself in a supreme law of the land.
He said all human rights treaties including the universal declaration of human rights recognize the right to life from birth.
“My strong suggestion is that Article 28 should simply reads ‘Every person has the right to life’ subject to clauses (2) and (3) imported from article 12 of current constitution that has provisions in which life can be taken away such as carrying out a capital punishment and termination of a pregnancy as laid down by an act of parliament for that purpose.
Simply put Article 12 (2) of the current constitution adequately protects the life of an unborn child – it reads ‘A person shall not deprive an unborn child of life by termination of pregnancy except in accordance with the conditions laid down by an Act of Parliament for that purpose,” Dr Macha said.
Chipangali Member of Parliament Vincent Mwale challenged the youths to come with policies they wanted to be formulated because they know what they wanted unlike allowing policy makers to think on their behalf.
Mr Mwale said there is need for empirical evidence in order to solve some of the problems the youths were facing.
“Show us the evidence, we will not hesitate to move the motion in the House because we know what we would be talking about,” Mr Mwale said.