The United States agency, International Pregnancy Advisory Services (IPAS) has commenced a three-day media training workshop for journalists in Nigeria aimed at getting the citizens better informed on issues of sexual and reproductive health and rights of women.
IPAS, an international non-profit and non-governmental organisation that focuses on protecting women’s health and advancing their reproductive rights in different parts of the world, said it has been its tradition to train journalists on its core mandate.
According Mr. Edosa Oviawe, Advisor, Policy & Advocacy, the workshop, which holds in Abuja, commences today Monday, October 26th, and ends on October 28, 2015.
The organisation maintains that “every woman has a right to safe reproductive health choices, including safe abortion care. No woman should have to risk her life, her health, her fertility, her well-being or the well-being of her family, because she lacks reproductive health care. Women everywhere must have the opportunity to determine their futures, care for their families and manage their fertility.
“Along with caring, committed health professionals and other colleagues worldwide, IPAS tackles this neglected public health problem head on in some of the world’s poorest countries. While many international donors and governments have focused attention and resources elsewhere, we struggle against the fundamental social injustice that results in the deaths of so many women in the prime of their lives.”
IPAS is dedicated to saving women’s lives by preventing unsafe abortion, working with local partners around the world, to improve women’s access and right to safe, high-quality abortion care and reproductive health services.
The agency supports the right of each woman to control her own sexuality, fertility, health and well-being, to enable women to make these personal decisions, and it works with advocates and policy-makers around the world to implement laws and policies that support that right.
The agency, noted that where laws restricted termination of pregnancy or where services were limited, women often risked their lives to end unwanted pregnancies. On average, 46 million times a year, women decide they cannot continue their pregnancies and seek abortions. An estimated 21 million of those abortions are unsafe, resulting in approximately 47,000 deaths every year — over half a million women have died in the last decade alone, and millions more have been injured.
source-->Dailytimes.com.ng