Organisation reveals alarming sexual violence, unsafe abortion among adolescent girls.

YouthFORCE further explained that girls who experience sexual violence are more likely to undergo unsafe abortions. 

This revelation was made at a press conference YouthFORCE organised at the Bamenda II Council Hall. The press conference was aimed at revealing findings on a survey conducted by the organisation on the prevalence of sexual violence, unsafe abortion and other factors associated with these experiences in the crisis-hit North West Region and other regions such as West and South, which host Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs. 

Reports presented during the press conference underscored the critical role of socio-economic vulnerability, displacement-related factors and limited access to healthcare in perpetuating these issues. 

The findings also revealed that evidence demonstrating the devastating effects of the Anglophone crisis on the physical, psychological and social wellbeing of vulnerable adolescent girls and young women, underlining the urgent need for effective interventions to address the causes and consequences of sexual violence and unsafe abortions in the crisis region.

According to the Founder of YouthFORCE, Theresa Morfaw, the objective of the survey carried out by her organisation was “to determine the prevalence of sexual violence, especially in the conflict-affected regions and also determine the prevalence of unsafe abortions amongst adolescent girls and young women who have been raped and who are seeking family planning services, as well as abortion services for their plight”.

She went on to highlight the role of the media in advocacy, while adding that the findings do not stay with the organisation.

“We have constantly had communication with policy-makers and decision-makers. We have presented our findings to municipalities, delegates and other key opinion leaders whom we reached out with the recommendations from the Girl Force Movement. We have the media here today because it is a strong advocacy tool and through the media organs we hope our recommendations reach out to many more decision-makers nationwide, as well including even traditional and religious leaders, parliamentarians and mayors,” she noted. 

Representing the Girl Force Movement, Nhonwi Mah, Chia Raissa, Mary Maknchi and Tata Afahnyui, highlighted the plight of victims.

“Victims go through trauma from communities, victimisation and stigmatisation by some social workers, which slow down the healing journey. Depression and anxiety are some other challenges faced by victims and survivors,” they said.

They recommended that: “Age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education should be incorporated at all levels of the educational system, capacity strengthening with social workers to uphold confidentiality and empathy, ease access to educational facilities, religious institutions, and communities for knowledge sharing, economic empowerment for young girls, partnership and referral systems, empowerment of young girls through training sessions on how to react to harassment and therapy”.

Created in 2009, Youth For Change and Empowerment, YouthFORCE, is a nonprofit making organisation committed to protecting human rights and wellbeing of people, especially adolescent girls and young women.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3223 of Sunday September 08, 2024