MPs Ques­tion Health Min­is­ter Over Fam­ily Plan­ning For Pupils

MPs Ques­tion Health Min­is­ter Over Fam­ily Plan­ning For Pupils


Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment have put gov­ern­ment to task to ex­plain a pro­posed plan to pro­vide con­tra­ceptives to chil­dren.

Ac­cord­ing to the pro­posed Na­tional Pol­icy on Sex­ual and Re­pro­duc­tive Health by the Min­istry of Health, chil­dren as young as 10 years will ac­cess fam­ily plan­ning ser­vices as one of the means to re­duce early preg­nan­cies among ado­les­cents.

The pol­icy states that there is need to fo­cus ef­forts on de­lay­ing sex de­but and in­creas­ing con­tra­cep­tive use among sex­u­al­ity ac­tive ado­les­cents.

All ado­les­cents are el­i­gi­ble for the health ser­vices, In­crease age-ap­pro­pri­ate in­for­ma­tion, ac­cess and use of fam­ily plan­ning among young peo­ple aged be­tween 10 and 24 years.

Bugan­gaizi East MP, Ones­mus Twina­mat­siko raised the matter be­fore Par­lia­ment on Feb­ru­ary 9, 2017, ques­tion­ing the ra­tio­nale by gov­ern­ment to in­tro­duce the plan.

Twina­mat­siko won­dered why gov­ern­ment wanted to tar­get girls, a move which could en­cour­age early sex.

“The pro­gramme by the Min­istry to in­tro­duce fam­ily plan­ning ser­vices to girls is so un­healthy,” he stated.

State Min­is­ter for Health, Dr. Joyce Moriku how­ever dis­missed the re­port in the me­dia, in­sist­ing that there was no plan in the off­ing by the min­istry to in­tro­duce con­tra­cep­tives to young girls.

“I will give a com­pre­hen­sive state­ment on this mat­ter next week,” Moriku pleaded

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