I just made a new friend. I fondly call her Nurse. At age 14 she aspires to become a nurse when she grows up, hoping she would not get pregnant like some of the other girls around her age that I got to meet.
It has been three years since I have been making frequent trips to the forest reserves at Omotosho, a small sleepy town along the Lagos–Benin expressway but I till now I never thought of going into the community. My spouse works at one of the power plants in the town, which is situated in Okitipupa Local Government Area of Ondo State and hosts of the Omotosho Power Stations Phase I (Step down) and II, the new Wewood afforestation project and a sprawling hub of allied industries. In spite of this, the community lacks access to electricity; it’s been this way for 10 years now, despite housing two power stations.
A few days ago, I decided to go into the community. I have become a regular in the area but had maintained quite a distance. In this instance, I decided to look out for opportunities to engage the girls in the community. Saturday, 26th August 2017, I set out carrying along with me some sanitary pads as an icebreaker. This of course is what I do as a reproductive and sexual health rights advocate.
We use clothes or tissue paper for our periods. Our school teacher told us that pads are dangerous.
I found Shewa, who offered to be my guide. She was a wonderful guide, who showed me around the town. She tried to get me an audience with the Baale (The local chief) and showed exceptional mobilizing skills, helping to get together the young girls around the community from their various homes to converge in front of the Basic Health Center where I parked my vehicle. The girls were aged between 14 to 18 years. There I met my new friend, Nurse, a science student in the Omotosho Grammar School. It was Nurse who would eventually get the other girls talking to me. ‘We use clothes or tissue paper for our periods. “Our school teacher told us that pads are dangerous.” (I really need to see that teacher when school resumes on the 18th of September).
None of these young girls in the group have used a pad before. They haven’t seen one before! What I found most baffling was that besides Shewa, Denmi, Nurse, and two other girls in this group of 20, the others have babies. As we talked, they admitted to me that teenage pregnancy is a big issue in their community with many of the girls dropping out of school as a result.
My mission had been to talk to them about Menstruation but what I met was quite worrisome. I could see myself in these girls. I had imagined what I was doing at 14 years old. I started talking about sex with them, and thankfully there is no shame, probably because I had told them I also had a baby as a teenager. So they know there is no high horse here. I discovered that some of the girls started having sex as early as age 9, 10. When a girl said “Odun Mesan” (9 years old), my heart sank to my belly. I was only in my first year of junior high school when I was 9 years old and sex was the last thing on my mind. There was a chilling silence when I asked them who the fathers were, they don’t know.
Men come to these underaged girls, some from the community, but most are from the industries around. These men would entice them with money and have sex with (rape) the kids and would be gone from the town before anything as most of them are there for short term projects or contracts. These poor girls are abandoned with babies strapped to their backs and a broken dream and an uncertain future. We talked about family planning and then education. Two of the girls told me they will never attend school in Omotosho because they would be made fun of. We talked about the possibilities of learning a trade. The conversation continued longer than I bargained as we continued talked about cleanliness and personal hygiene and the reasons teenage girls engage in transactional sex and the dangers of it.
Across Ondo state, from Idoani to Imafon to Ilara-Mokin to Akungba Akoko and the riverine communities, one pitiful sight that greets you is the preponderance of teenage mothers. Many of these communities – when an intervention is brought to them – show genuine concern for these issues, owning up to the high incidence of teenage pregnancy and seek help for their girls so they can grow without the fear of being held down by pregnancy. This has been the experience of advocates in the course of work in communities like Imafon and Ilara mokin. In spite of having these experiences I was completely unprepared for what I experienced at Omotosho.
The Danger Signs
Ondo state leads the rest of Nigeria in the reduction of maternal mortality rate. The state recorded reduced maternal mortality ratio from 81 per 100,000 live births to 27.5 per 100,000 live birth as at March 2017 (Source:CEMDOS).
“One is at loss to why the state has ignored the obvious warning signs of the dangers of teenage pregnancy. It is not enough to have these beautiful policies on paper, the state government needs to walk the talk,” says Mrs. Bojo, a health systems information analyst, who is familiar with the matter. “Ondo state is sitting on a keg of gunpowder, there are too many teenage mothers everywhere especially in the hard to reach (rural) communities and many of them are out of school.” Teenage pregnancy in Ondo state is on the rise, according to the Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS 2013), the percentage of women aged between 15-19yrs who have begun childbearing is 13.5%.
An adolescent friendly programme that sits in the State Specialist Hospital in the state capital, Akure is idling as demand grow for Sexual and Reproductive Health Services. This is one of several other centers under lock and key.
Though communities have a role to play, as stakeholders in ensuring sustainability, there remains a vacuum as the state government has little or no programmes in place. These girls have questions about abortion, rape, incest etc, but no one to answer them. How friendly then are the services the government claims to offer?
I don’t know what to say any more.
*Many of the names in this story have been changed.
Impact Giving
Timidi is planning to return to Omotosho town. She plans to spend the International Day of the Girl Child with the girls and help the girls return to school or obtain vocational education. set up businesses for them. Join us to help Omotosho town break the cycle of teenage pregnancy and rape by supporting Timidi’s work. Click to Donate here
Reporting by Blessing Timidi; Editing by Adewunmi Emoruwa. [Please credit Machaha (machaha.com), a Gatefield Impact, social change project focused on the Sustainable Development Goals]
