International Day for Action on Women's Health: What you need to know

Since time immemorial women have been discriminated upon, rejected and subjected to be the second class citizens of society.

For a woman to sore and break barriers, it took more than a village for her to succeed and champion through all the punches along the way.

It is for this reason that every year on May 28 is observed as the International Day for Action on Women’s Health.

It is a campaign championing every aspect of a woman’s life from her sexuality to her physical health in general.

And since its inaugural launch in 1987 women worldwide have joined hands in calling for action focused on various areas relating to women’s health.

The range of topics throughout the years include: access to quality health care, the feminisation of poverty, access to safe and legal abortion, women and HIV/AIDS, VAW as a Global Health Emergency, and Young People’s SRHR, among others.

Although women have managed to bridge a few gaps in the recent past, with the outbreak of Covid-19, a lot of these bridges have been shuttered, women abused and their health neglected.

The pandemic affected all our lives but for women it exposed and how much women are vulnerable even in their own homes and also how much healthcare is inaccessible to many.

With all the evidence around us, it is clear the pandemic worsened the social and gender inequalities that manifested in different forms of gender based violence, women’s right to life and discrimination.

This year, the theme for the International Day of Action for Women’s Health, as the global pandemic threatens to become increasingly regressive, it is more important than ever to denounce any attempts at curtailing women’s rights, including our human rights to decide freely upon all aspects of our bodies, our sexualities, and our lives, free from coercion, discrimination and violence.