Of contraceptives and campus students

In Uganda, 1’500 women die from unsafe abortions every year, out of these 1/3 are university students from the various institutions around Uganda.
Truth be told, there is a lot of sex in hostels and university halls and that is a fact we have to embrace, but well, that’s expected. The saddening bit is the fact that many students don’t often care to use protection or contraception when or after having sex. This has escalated the spread of STI/D(s) and also increased on the number of abortions made every year because of unplanned for pregnancies.

Contraception is the least used in universities even when free condoms are often given to students, the rush to have sex might be one of the causes but also the fueling of the African Sex Cliché, culture and religion are a negative factor to the use of contraception, a negative element that needs to be cut down for a better future. The State Minister of Ethics & Integrity, Rev. Simon Lokodo has been seen countless times discouraging the use and display of condoms in public places, whatever he wants to accomplish, God only knows.

Most of the few students that use condoms don’t even know the proper use of the condoms, then the multiple myths surrounding contraception especially the injections like sayana press and the morning after-pills is quite disturbing.
“I would rather use a condom or do it live because I would rather go for an abortion than use those pills,” Mary a Kyambogo university student asserted, “I just can’t afford to give birth to crippled kids because of the effect of pills that I can avoid.”
The fact that the morning after-pills are not easily accessible in Uganda is also a limiting factor to the use of this type of contraception, more so, the pills are quite costly going for about ugx.20,000 or ugx.15,000 for the genuine pills.

Since many secondary schools shun the use of condoms and don’t even accept CSOs to teach students how to use condoms on the basis of religion and advocating for the ABC method with condom use as a side dish and not a necessity, many students get to university with negative thoughts about condoms and this has not only led to unplanned for pregnancies that often result into abortions but also led to the spread of STI/D(s) most of which are life threatening like HIV/AIDs.

We should advocate for the use of contraception so as to save lives and so as to keep safe. Life is short and fun a necessity but death is real and so is HIV/AIDs.
The quote “We all worry about the population explosion, but we don’t worry about it at the right time,” by Arthur Hoppe best explains what we often do in real life, we always worry at the wrong time. If it’s not on, it’s not safe, let contraception use be your next best friend. #Not2Late2