|
BNW |
|
B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
|
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
THOUSANDS of Nigerian graduates, male and female, reported to the NYSC orientation camps across the country the other week to commence yet another year of service to the fatherland. Pregnant women who reported at the Iyana Ipaja orientation camp in Lagos State were, however, shocked and apparently dismayed to learn that they would not be allowed into the camp because of their pregnancy. Since pregnancy was now the basis of differentiation among the new corps members it became the rallying point for interest group mobilisation: the concerned women immediately formed the National Association of Pregnant Corps Members (NAPCM) to protest their exclusion from the programme.
Under the NAPCM platform, the women petitioned the Director General of the NYSC in Abuja, Brig-Gen Walter Oki, alleging that the director of the NYSC in Lagos, herself a woman, had "drawn the battle line between her and the women corpers (sic) who are currently serving and are pregnant". They alleged further that the director had in fact begun physical inspection and verification of women in order to discover and flush out the pregnant ones, "de-list" or "de-mobilise" them, and send them home to have their babies. They were directed to join the next batch of corps members after weaning their babies. The petitioners therefore asked the Director General to investigate and redress the action by the NYSC director in Lagos.
Although the Director General has not responded to the petition from NAPCM, we find it pertinent to comment on the issue for a number of reasons. First, it appears that there is nothing in the enabling law that specifically excludes pregnant women from participating in any of the three segments of the NYSC scheme: the orientation camp, the primary assignment and the community development programme. The exclusion of the pregnant women from the orientation camp cannot therefore be justified by law.
In any case, if there was a change in policy this should have been communicated to potential corps members in advance. Corps members are usually posted outside their states of origin. So those who were affected in Lagos must have come from various parts of the country. As one of the affected ladies lamented, she had just arrived from Kwara State and was totally unaware of the new rule.
No one informed her of the policy change when she collected her call-up letter from the University of Ilorin instructing her to report to camp in Lagos. The affected ladies became stranded in Lagos and, not surprisingly, chose to stay at the gate of the orientation camp until a solution was found because they had nowhere else to go that weekend. The trauma and frustration which the policy visited on the women could have been easily avoided if the NYSC directorate had paid better attention to information management.
The new rule also appears to stigmatise pregnancy, turning what is essentially a desirable venture (at least to the couple) into an object of discrimination and punishment. How can the ban on pregnant women be justified against the backdrop of Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution which guarantees the right to freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex? Has pregnancy become a disability? Even if it were, it still does not constitute a reasonable ground for exclusion from the NYSC since those who are physically impaired, that is, those who for instance use wheel chairs, are not excluded from participation.
It can of course be argued that the rigours of the orientation camp pose a risk to pregnant women because of their delicate nature. Pregnancy is, to be sure, a matter of great concern to the mother, to the unborn baby, to the husband, to the family, and to the society at large. No serious society plays with the health of its citizens. But as any cursory inspection will reveal, the orientation camps dotted around the country could in fact pose a serious threat to the health of all those in the camp, and are hazardous to pregnant women in particular.
The sanitary conditions are far below acceptable standards of hygiene. Hardly any provisions are made for emergency services and there are no special facilities for pregnant women. With the NYSC directorate always complaining of insufficient funding, and with institutional inertia and corruption, there is little optimism that the unhygienic environment in the orientation camps can receive any substantial improvement in the near term.
The orientation programme is designed, among other things, to challenge the physical fitness and endurance level of corps members. Pregnant women will find it difficult, if not dangerous, to participate in the physical exertions and strenuous exercises which other corps members are made to endure at the orientation camps. These physical challenges could pose a hazard to the health and well-being of pregnant women. Put simply pregnant women cannot, and should not be allowed to endure the rigours of the orientation camp. Yet the rigours and physical challenges are a necessary and desirable part of the orientation programme, and all corps members must of necessity participate in them.
The conflicting and contradictory questions which the exclusion of pregnant women from the NYSC raise can be resolved by maintaining a balance between the need for all corps members to participate in all the programmes of the scheme, on the one hand, and the need to cater for the health of pregnant women. The solution then lies in excluding pregnant women from the orientation programme only, because of the potential danger to their health, while allowing them to participate fully in the primary assignment and in the community development programmes.
They should undergo the rigours of the orientation camp at the appropriate time, after delivering and weaning their babies. Since the number of pregnant women during any service year would be small in proportion to the total number of corps members, the NYSC directorate can easily manage the logistics. The directorate should also take measures to improve the health and sanitary conditions in the orientation camps.
|
|
||||||||||||
