At 17, Ifrah Ahmed arrived in Dublin, Ireland in 2006, escaping war in Somalia. To support her asylum application, she had to undergo a medical check-up, which included a Pap smear. The medical personnel were shocked...
good governance
Reproductive health: knowledge is power
What do young people in Africa find acceptable when it comes to health and social interventions? This should be a key question of interest for policymakers, intervention developers, and service providers concerned with...
The daily grind of dangerous work
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported, with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), that in 2020, 160 million children were subjected to child labour globally. Child labour remains a critical...
The gender economics of education
Even before Covid-19, sub-Saharan Africa was the region of the world with the most children not in education – with 37 million school-age children out of school before the pandemic. The lockdown measures across the...
The curse of sexual terrorism
UN Women estimates that 15 million adolescent girls worldwide have experienced forced sex. In Nigeria alone a 2014 national survey found that one in four girls experience sexual violence, defined as “all forms of...
South Africa: when a blessing is a curse
Statutory rape has swept South Africa over the past five years as evidenced by the number of girls aged 10 to 14 years giving birth at public health facilities, which has soared by almost 50%. It is a healthcare crisis...
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