Involve youths in reproductive issues – official

Harare (New Ziana) – It is imperative to prioritise and involve youths in sexual reproductive policies and programmes as they constitute the biggest segment of the population in Africa, and to get their early buy-in, and official said on Friday.

Lillian Benjamin Mwakyosi, executive director of DARE, an organization that promotes community engagement on sexual and reproductive health issues, made the remarks at the ongoing International Conference on AIDS and STI’s in Africa (ICASA) in Harare.

Mwakyosi said a youthful African population presents a challenge for the continent to mainstream sexual health and reproductive issues while also engaging with the adolescents in order to achieve set targets in HIV prevention and other issues affecting them.

“Demography studies show that Africa has the most youthful population amongst all other continents because of exponential high birth rates, this means governments should channel more resources to sexual health and reproduction issues in order to tackle HIV and AIDS pandemic,” she said.

“We should be ashamed if we are developing policies that do not speak of needs of the young people because at the end of the day, we would be failing them and, ultimately, we will not be able to achieve what we are setting as targets in terms of HIV prevention and other issues affecting them in sexual and reproductive health,” she said.

Mwakyosi said adolescent and young people carry the burden of HIV infections and yet policies in several countries are not favorable for the young people to access reproductive services because of age.

This, she said, was against reality on the ground that these are the same people who are engaging in sexual activities given the high number of adolescent pregnancies.

“We should accept the reality that young people are sexually active and need family planning services. This should be a strong wake up call for our governments on the continent to frame policies with this in mind in order to achieve an HIV free continent,” she said.

She said most countries in Africa have been able to reduce HIV infection incidence, but the incidences have been stabilizing at a very high rate, meaning progress being made was not sufficient enough to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

More than 8 000 delegates, both in person and virtually are attending ICASA, the largest international conference on HIV/AIDS in Africa.

The conference, which ends on Saturday, will also mainstream respect for equality, inclusion and diversity in the control and mitigation of the impact of diseases; response to HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, Monkeypox, Ebola and any other emerging disease, as well as mitigate the impact of hepatitis, tuberculosis and malaria through strengthening of health systems.

New Ziana