The Ministry of Health has called for sensitization of legal frameworks on age of consent on the access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) programs among service providers in the country.
Speaking on the sidelines of the national engagement meeting in Lilongwe on Tuesday, deputy director responsible for adolescents and youth SRHR program Alex Katengeza said although they are hoping to provide the services because we have our policies, our strategies that we have developed, some issues need clarification.
The meeting which was held by Ministry of Health through the Reproductive Health Directorate in collaboration with Youth Advocates, Zimbabwe, aimed at discussing the updates of legal frameworks that support age of consent to access SRHR services at all levels as part of improving and strengthening the delivery of SRHR interventions targeting adolescents and young people.
“For us in the Ministry of Health, our service providers are supposed to be knowledgeable enough with the laws that are supposed to be applied when they’re providing the services, especially with sexual and reproductive services.
“We’re now talking about the age of consent, which is very critical, so people should understand what is it that we can consider in this situation.
“It’s a very hot issue. It’s very crucial but we need to find a long-lasting solution to it. if you look at the indicators that we have, we have high rates of teenage pregnancies, these rates are coming in because young people are having unprotected sex at that tender age, and if we are to say we should intervene, our interventions should be very clear.
“They need to have the information, they need to have the service like for example, contraceptives, they need to know. The good part is that our colleagues in the Ministry of Education have the curriculum, comprehensive sexual education and life skills education. In the curriculum, they have information about their contraceptives, how can they prevent unintended pregnancies and all that. So to us, we’ll just start from there. The knowledge that they have in school, we increased that knowledge and at the end we will discuss with them to have an informed choice before they get the service. To us, we feel that’s the way to go,” he said
He said the main challenge being faced is a lack of understanding and knowledge about the existing laws among service providers in the country.
The meeting which was funded by HIVOS, brought together Members of Parliament (MPS), members from the High Court, civil society and other ministries.
According to Hivos, age of consent requirements in Malawi create barriers for adolescent and youth access to SRH services.
Addressing age of consent barriers will enable access to high quality, affordable SRH information and services thereby enabling adolescents and youth to make informed choices and ensure positive health seeking behaviors.
