Increasing access to sexual and reproductive health rights and HIV services for women and adolescent girls

About the project

The International Community of Women living with HIV West Africa (ICWWA) and Womankind Centre for Women Empowerment (WCWE) aim to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services for all women living with HIV (WLHIV) in Nigeria. This initiative stems from Nigeria’s commitment to achieving sexual and reproductive health for all by adopting the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, and developed a National Reproductive Health Policy and Strategy in 2001.

The project plans to start by building the capacity of WLHIV to advocate for their SRH rights and training them to document incidences of violations as they occur. The project also aims to create a broad alliance of thirty Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working on SRH to support evidence-based advocacy, raise awareness among police, health care providers and community leaders on SRH rights of WLHIV. This will empower them to challenge discrimination faced by WLHIV and engage in dialogue with policymakers on accessing SRH services.

By the end of the project, awareness about SRH rights of health care providers and other stakeholders will have been raised, resulting in better access to SRH services by WLHIV. WLHIV in all their diversity will also be better placed to continue to advocate for their rights and to raise the issues that affect them with policy makers and other key stakeholders.