Elvis Akomoneh, Access Care Institute (Cameroon)

Our initiative aims to address the unmet needs of young women internally displaced as a result of the armed conflict in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon with regards to access to comprehensive contraception care and sexual education. The specific problem is the currently high rates of rape and unprotected sexual activities among these young women brought about by the seven yearlong armed conflict in the Northwest and Southwest (Anglophone) Regions of Cameroon. The conflict, which began as a civil protest in October 2016 by the English-speaking minority seeking greater representation quickly metamorphosed into an armed conflict with young men taking up arms against the military. Schools and health facilities have been burndown, businesses and economic activities paralyzed with hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes. Displaced from their homes and in search for refuge, some of these young women are raped or tamed into illicit sexual activities due to their vulnerable situation.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that this group of persons (because they are unmarried) are not included in routine family planning campaigns designed and served in most healthcare establishments as they serve mostly pregnant or married women. A young unmarried woman requesting such services is judged as indulging in premarital sex. Within these host communities, there is a marked increase in unprotected sexual activity by the adolescent population evident by heightened demand for pregnancy preventive methods that aim at stopping the fertilized egg from attaching to the lining of the womb. This, in addition to high prevalence of unsafe abortions, calls for an effective multilevel family planning approach in order to safeguard the lives and reproductive health of young women. It is also a clarion call for contraceptive services to be available in communities and delivered in user-friendly manners, especially to the adolescent girls and young unmarried women. Besides, the paucity of information on the delivery, and consumption of family planning services in these regions energizes a need for a determinant study. The findings will be useful in providing information to both the health officials and the adolescents so that both can develop attitudes, values and skills needed to achieve behavioral changes necessary to reduce the associated problems of early unwanted pregnancies and to a greater extend, sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS.