By Asma’u Ahmad
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has called on media organisations to increase the awareness on the benefits of contraceptive use in Nigeria.
UNFPA Regional Director for West and Central Africa Office, Dr Mabingue Ngom, made the appeal whilefielding questions a media Forum in Abuja.
Ngom noted that the media had a role to play in addressing this social challenge where people do not know the importance of contraceptive use.
“Contraceptive or birth control is a device or drug used to prevent unwanted pregnancy. “But in Nigeria, you have a low contraceptive prevalence rate and I feel that the media should be able to enlighten the public about it.
“The biggest contributor to the lack of knowledge about the uptake of available options was a result of low awareness and misconceptions about the use of contraceptives.
“There is no doubt that contraceptive lie at the heart of proper Family Planning (FP) and FP is a key factor in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,” he said.
He added that when women and young girls are uninformed about their health, they would continue to make wrong decisions about their own bodies.
He cautioned that the country would continue to have large number of young people that the working age population would not be able to cater for, if not tackled now.
