By: Alusine Rehme Wilson
Key stakeholders in the Northeast region, specifically women and Human Rights Activists, media practitioners, as well as Religious and Traditional Leaders unanimously expressed deep interest over the passing into law of the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health (SMRH) Bill.
Key highlights of the bill’s provisions if passed seek to enhance access to abortion especially for unwanted pregnancies that may have emerged from rape cases, among other abnormalities encompassing women and teenagers physical and mental health considerations by way of ensuring the overall well-being of women nationwide.
“As women, we’re excited to learn about efforts made by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) and its health partners for the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Bill to become law in Sierra Leone.
"The proposed law is for us women. We dearly need it based on what we’ve learned during our regional engagement with Marie Stopes Sierra Leone when it’s approved and passed into law, the SMRH will become the nation’s first ever law to offer safe spaces for women and girls,” according to Madam Beatrice Ada Turay, President of Tonkolili Women in Gender TWiG President.
She appealed on behalf of her colleagues for “cabinet and members of parliament to approve the bill in a bid to allow women and adolescent girls in Sierra Leone to realize their sexual and reproductive health rights, improved the health care for women to curtail maternal deaths, still births and other fatal health complication of women.”
During the key stakeholders and influential women engagement held on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Sahara Hotel Conference room in Makeni city, for participants from Bombali, Tonkolili and Koinadugu district, to participate in the education and consultation meetings convened by Marie Stopes, a leading health care provider in Sierra Leone, their Advocacy and External Relations Manager Sandy Massaquoi said their strides is desired to compliment the efforts of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.
“As a leading health care provider and health partner we’re embarking on this advocacy and education on Sexual Reproductive Health Rights and the proposed Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Bill to raise awareness among women and adolescent girls with support from the European Union through the Youth 4 Health,” he added expressing hope that the bill when passed into law will protect health care workers and women from the social banes preventing them from taking control over their sex and reproductive rights.
The 80 participants from various facets of society in Bombali, Tonkolili and Koinadugu district, to participate in the education and consultation meetings convened by Marie Stopes Sierra Leone as part of their commitments to compliment the efforts of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) and other health partners to popularize and examine provision in the draft of the proposed SMRH bill, the stakeholders, echoed Mr. Massaquoi word.
They jointly expressed hope for “the end of community stigma against women and adolescent girls when the SMRH bill would have been passed into law, urging the parliamentarians and cabinet to consider approving the bill.”
For one of the participants, Jariatu Bangura, pregnant women from Mannoh Street in Makeni city, “women for far too long have suffered the pain of mourning our fellow women especially in remote villages whose husbands sole desire is for them to conceive and give birth to as many children as possible even at the expenses of their well-being resulting to deaths of both new born, pregnant women, but the proposed law will put an end to all our pains,” she stressed.
Like Maria Stopes, People’s Alliance for Reproductive Health Advocacy (PARHA) among other health partners through the Ministry of Health’s established technical working group to develop a draft of the SMRH bill which they’ve since submitted for cabinet approval before it would eventually reach the Law makers (MPs) who also benefited from similar engagement to debate on it in the well of parliament before passing it into law, signing a transformative change for women and girls in Sierra Leone.
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