By Chantal Umuhoza
In Rwanda, there were more than 19,000 teen pregnancies in 2018 and between 2016-2018, more than 55,000 teen deliveries (between 15 -19 years), reported by the Ministry for Health yet the sexuality of young people mostly young women and adolescents is largely unaccepted and their autonomy to make sexual and reproductive health choices is suppressed in different ways.
In September 2019 for the first time, The United Nations will hold a high level meeting on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) with the theme: “Moving together to build a healthier world” to garner momentum and political commitment for UHC. UHC is a framework re-emerging as a unifying approach for global health in the era of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the hopes that it will provide an opportunity for renewed attention to meeting the health-care needs of all.
A sustainable approach of UHC should be to center preventative measures alongside curative and rehabilitation, thus, the importance of sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender equality as critical components of any discussion on UHC.
Rwanda’s context remains with numerous barriers for young women and adolescents’ SRHR, including legal restrictions requiring third party authorization to access health services for young people below 18 years; limited access to comprehensive sexuality education and the full range of SRHR services; insufficient funds allocation to youth and adolescents SRHR programs and social cultural restrictions that remain largely unaddressed…Read more>>
