Recently, additional 234 women and children
were rescued by the Nigerian Army from the
Sambisa Forest in Borno State, latest indications
shows quite a number of the rescued girls are
pregnant.
Lagos, Executive Director, UNFPA, Prof.
Babatunde Osotimehin, who made the
disclosure opened up on the fact that, UNFPA
had taken deliveries of over 16,000 pregnancies
over the last one year in the troubled North East
part of the country.
He stated “What we found is that some of the
women and girls that have come back actually
have much more in terms of the stress they have
faced, so the counselling has to be more intense
and working with them one-on-one.
“I’m glad the communities are not
excommunicating them and are taking them
back. That is an important therapy too. We
anticipate this is going to escalate because the
military intervention is continuing, we find that
more people are now needing our services and
we will continue’.
He also stated that the UNFPA had earlier
collaborated with the Federal and state
governments to train 60 counsellors to offer
psychosocial services to the affected women
and children.
“UNFPA is providing dignity for women. In
conflict and disasters, most people would only
think of water and sanitation, provision of tents
and housing, and food, which are all important.
But women and girls have specific needs that
nobody else looks after; it is only UNFPA that is
doing this. We are giving psychosocial
counselling.
“Beyond that, in the growing young people, we
will always have pregnant women, but nobody
segregates the needs of the pregnant women
which are very important and different from the
needs of the average community.”



odili
.net/news/source/2015/may/4/2.html