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MONROVIA, LIBERIA – Jackie Wolo seems shy sitting in the busy waiting room at a Planned Parenthood Association of Liberia clinic in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital.
“I have come to the clinic because I want to protect myself from unwanted pregnancy,” Wolo says.
"The clinic will empower [women], strengthen health systems and reduce poverty in families in Liberia."
Wolo sits with the other women, most of them young, waiting for her turn to see the doctor. She says she has been using contraceptives – as they are commonly called in Liberia – as family planning for a couple of years now.
She is not yet married and has not told her boyfriend that she is using contraceptives. Not many women who use family planning discuss the choice with their partners.
Mary Williams, in her late teens, says she also has not told her boyfriend that she is using contraceptives. Williams and Wolo say this is because they fear their partners would not approve.
Williams started using family planning methods only recently.
“It was my mother who introduced me to family planning,” she says.
Both Williams and Wolo say the contraceptive they use is the injection method.
Doctors say an increasing number of women in Liberia are using family planning. Girls and women attribute this rise to a desire to stay in school and strengthen their businesses. But many don’t tell their significant others that they are using it, as many men reject the entry of family planning into Liberian culture. Others worry about side effects. Health authorities have launched awareness campaigns and strategic plans in order to enable and encourage women to access sexual and reproductive health services.
The Family Planning Association of Liberia was established here in 1956 to provide contraceptives to women. In 2005, it became Planned Parenthood Association of Liberia as it expanded to provide sexual and reproductive health services to women and young people in Liberia. It is part of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
If certain changes are made, it is possible for Liberia to meet targets to improve maternal health – goal five of the Millennium Development Goals, a U.N. anti-poverty initiative that countries worldwide have pledged to achieve by 2015, according to the MDG Monitor. Part of this goal is reducing the unmet need for family planning, which in Liberia is about 37 percent, according to the United Nations Population Fund. The unmet need in Liberia is higher than the regional average, which was about 25 percent in 2010, according to the World Health Organization.
Dr. Florence Kromah, a doctor at the clinic, has been busy all day. Kromah says she has seen more than 10 women so far.
“The number of people who visit the clinic are increasing on a daily basis because of the risk involved in abortion these days,” she says.
She says that increased awareness about family planning across Liberia has also contributed to the rise in patients at the clinic.
Most of the clinic’s clients are young women, but many married women also come to the clinic to seek advice, Kromah says. The injection method is the most common means of family planning in Liberia because it can be taken once every three months, giving clients time to go about their normal activities. Another method commonly used in Liberia is the combined oral contraceptive pill.
Kromah says other services the clinic offers have also contributed to the rise in patients.
“Apart from family planning, we provide counseling for HIV/AIDS and other health issues surrounding women, which explains also why we have a rise in the number of clients every day,” Kromah says.
