Haly Hope Foundation and Media Advocates For Peace under Global Exchange On Religion in Society (GERIS) Project seek partnership with BBC Media Action to create awareness on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights of Women With Disabilities.
The group made this appeal during their advocacy visit to BBC Media Action in Abuja recently.
This is a microproject as part of the GERIS project funded by the European Union and implemented by Particip through Apolmida Haruna Tsammani (Haly Hope Foundation) and Zubairu Babajide Atta (Media Advocates for Peace) and was tagged “CSO and Media Networking Project: Promoting the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Women with Disabilities in Nigeria. The objectives of the project are to get a critical mass awareness on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights of Women with Disabilities and other matters through advocacy, education and dialogue engagement within the matrix of selected key opinion leaders, religious leaders, PWDs, Law enforcement and the Mass media.
Zubairu Babajide Atta from the Media Advocates for Peace who headed the group at the visit, in his remark, after introduction of the project, he said that during the pandemic, there were serious lack of access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights; it was a case of survival of the fittest, access to healthcare among others and women with disabilities were most affected.
“There is a study by UN Women which led to the fact that there is a need to begin to make noise about SRHR of Women and Girls with disabilities”
“There is disability law and a commission saddled with the responsibility of ensuring implementation of the law. There are still issues of awareness, many are yet to know that a commission exists, issues of accessibility to public structures, there is still nothing much done towards the implementation and the commission is not well funded”.
“In the accessibility audit carried out by National Human Rights Commission, many thought that access is all about creating ramps without knowing that accessibility is beyond ramps, it includes creating access for other forms of disabilities”.
Atta explained that their engagement with BBC Media Action is to see how they can begin to amplify the issues, bringing it to the fore for more conversation around the issues.
“It is also looking at the narrative that comes out in the mass media in terms of content, portraying the issues from the right based approach” he added.
Speaking further, Atta appealed to BBC to work with them and develop some short documentaries which would be useful while making presentation at the National Conference on Disability coming up in November 2022.
Agbo Chris Obiora, The Executive Director, The Qualitative Magazine who also accompanied the group suggested that the National Policy on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights of Persons with disabilities with emphasis on Women and Girls should be dramatized in short videos to create awareness.
The Country Director, BBC Media Action, Lekan Onasanya, in his response, apologized for inadequate accessibility facilities in their offices.
“The property does not belong to BBC, it is a rented apartment so there is a limit we can modify but we will do our best to provide minimum accessibility standard in our office” he added.
Giving a background of BBC Media Action in Nigeria which is INGO under BBC that is donor driven, he said that BBC is world renowned media and assured that there are areas they can work together with the group.
“Our strength is in the media and your strength is in the advocacy, we can develop partnership along that line” he added.
He encouraged the group to share resource materials with them and they can see how they can work with them to promote SRHR of women and girls with disabilities.
TQM learnt that BBC Media Action is working on SRHR and Family Planning of women with disabilities in Kaduna, they are ready to partner with the group on GERIS project to develop short drama towards promoting SRHR of women with disabilities.
At the end, the group presented a branded T-shirt to the Country Director to signify their support for the advocacy.
