Daily Trust journalist wins SHE & Rights Media Award

The health editor of Daily Trust newspaper, Ojoma Akor, has won the first prize of the SHE & Rights Media Awards 2024-2025. The hybrid award Ceremony was held Thursday at a Side Event of the 78th World Health Assembly (WHA78) in Geneva, Switzerland. Ojoma Akor who is from Nigeria has received many awards, fellowships and […]

The health editor of Daily Trust newspaper, Ojoma Akor, has won the first prize of the SHE & Rights Media Awards 2024-2025.

The hybrid award Ceremony was held Thursday at a Side Event of the 78th World Health Assembly (WHA78) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Ojoma Akor who is from Nigeria has received many awards, fellowships and story grants for gender, health and science reporting.

The second and third prizes were won by Ms. Catherine Murombedzi from Zimbabwe, and Kalpana Acharya from Nepal respectively.

Other journalists who won Special Mention Prizes were: Babacar Sene from Senegal, Betty Herlina from Indonesia, Audrey Galawu from Zimbabwe, Yecenu Sasetu from Nigeria and Hamu Madzedze from Zimbabwe.

The award is given by the SHE & Rights (Sexual Health with Equity & Rights) initiative , which is hosted by the Global Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI),

International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF),Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR), Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW),

Asia Pacific Media Alliance for Health and Development (APCAT Media), and CNS.

The initiative was launched in September 2024 to build, sustain and increase media understanding and engagement, around sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice (SRHRJ), bodily autonomy and other issues related to gender justice – with the lens of equity and human right to health – in Asia Pacific and African region.

Announcing the awards during the ceremony, Kelcey Armstrong-Walenczak of CeHDI said over 280 stories from 21 countries were generated during the period with the most excellent reporting honoured with the award.

She commended the awardees for bringing the issues to the general public in a way that is science based, accurate and promotes the right to health.

Speaking earlier at the event themed, “Delivering on UHC in an era of pushback against gender equality and human right to health” Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Right to Health, said that Universal Health Coverage ( UHC) is fundamental to reducing health inequalities, and ensuring just, peaceful and inclusive societies.

She said, “The world is experiencing wars, humanitarian crisis, economic crisis, climate crisis, genocide, which have all had an impact on the right to health; reminding us of the interrelated human rights issues that operate at different levels, in clinical care, at the level of health systems and in underlying determinants of health, political determinants of health.

“Delivering on UHC in an era of pushback against gender equality and human rights, must consider that every human being is entitled, with no discrimination, to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and also a life conducive to living with dignity. The right to health contains freedoms and entitlements, and the freedoms include the right to a system of health protection which provides equality of opportunity for people to enjoy the highest available standard of physical and mental health.”

She called on stakeholders to pay attention to the situation of groups in vulnerable and marginalized situations, such as but not limited to children, adolescents, women and girls, persons with disabilities, migrant people, refugees, LGBTQIA plus persons and older persons.

“We have learned that prioritizing right of one group of rights over another leads to detrimental outcomes and systemic violations of human rights,” she added.

Shobha Shukla, executive director of CNS said , gender equality and right to health are fundamental human rights, adding that everyone, including girls and women and all gender diverse people, need to remain healthy and able to access the full spectrum of healthcare services without any stigma, discrimination, prejudice or fear of criminalization.

She said UHC is an important step towards ensuring health for all, but that UHC alone is not enough to ensure that everyone remains healthy and disease free.

“We need to dismantle patriarchy and access barriers related to gender to ensure that girls and women and all gender diverse peoples are able to access existing health and social support services, when and where they need them in a people centered and rights based manner,” she added.

Nazneen Damji, Chief, a.i. Governance and Participation Section; and Senior Policy Advisor, Gender Equality, HIV and Health, UN Women, said the Beijing Declaration was a bold promise to the world’s women and girls that their rights, dignity and health would be non- negotiable but that promise remains unfulfilled.

While saying that UHC cannot be truly universal if it does not prioritize gender equality and human rights, she said health systems that ignore the unique needs and barriers faced by women and girls are not only unjust, but ineffective.

She said, “We are facing a rising coordinated pushback on women’s and girls’ health and rights, particularly their sexual and reproductive health and rights. In just the past few months, we have seen drastic funding cuts impacting not only civil society and Member States, but also UN agencies that provide abortion care and life saving HIV treatment. This is not just a budget issue. It is a crisis of political will. Let’s be clear, sexual and reproductive health and rights are not optional. They are fundamental human rights, and yet only 56% of married women aged 15 to 49 can make decisions about their own reproductive health. This is not a statistic. It is a reflection of deep rooted structural inequalities and harmful social norms that continue to deny women rights over their own bodies.”

She said the consequences are devastating, adding that ” Every two minutes, a woman dies from preventable pregnancy related causes. In 2023 alone, over 700 women died each day from complications that could have been avoided with access to quality care.”

She said it was important to ensure that UHC is not just about coverage but must be about equity.

She said, “It must be about rights. It must be about justice. That means guaranteeing access to comprehensive sexual reproductive health services, including contraception, safe abortion, maternal care and HIV prevention, which requires increasing domestic financing for health systems and ensuring that women’s health services are integral to health benefit packages. It requires protecting and funding the organizations and movements rights and most importantly, putting women and girls at the center of health policy, not as passive recipients, but as leaders and decision makers.”

Dr David Pagwesese Parirenyatwa, former Minister of Health Zimbabwe and president of ICASA 2025 said it was important to protect and promote special groups in our communities.