African Centre for Innovative Research and Development (AFRI-CIRD) today Monday 27th August, 2018 hosted the team from Bridge Connect (BC) in furtherance to the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) coming up in Kigali, Rwanda in November, 2018. Sani Mohammed who is the head of Bridge Connect, while making his remarks highlighted the BC with support from ‘Population Reference Bureau (PRB)’ – Washington DC is implementing a ‘Youth Video Project’ as documentary to be presented at the ICFP. BC has therefore identified AFRI-CIRD for a video documentary for the aforementioned objective. Interestingly the CEO AFRI-CIRD served as one of the ‘Abstract Reviewers’ for the conference, and at the same time AFRI-CIRD’s team had a paper accepted for presentation at the conference entitled ‘Women’s Empowerment and Contraceptive Use: An Examination of Contraceptive Uptake among Married Women in Gombe State’
AFRI-CIRD is proud to be interviewed on ‘Early/Forced Marriage and Its Implications for the Girl Child in Northern Nigeria’. Mr. Mohammed Bello (CEO AFRI-CIRD) while acknowledging poverty, and socio-cultural practices as major drivers of child marriage, particularly in Northern Nigeria, he identified high risk for sexually transmitted diseases, cervical cancer, premature birth and death of offspring as some of the health implications of the practice. Denial of basic education, economic disempowerment and social dislocations are also associated consequences of the practice, he added. As a solution, youths he said needs to amplify advocacy for sexual and reproductive health rights while speaking and acting up. Government needs to incorporate SRHS into their programmes and ensuring availability of such services at the hospitals. Girl child education must be prioritized, at least ensuring she completes her secondary school, while also acquiring basic life skills.
