Women sit in the waiting area of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) health clinic in Bakassi Internally Displaced People (IDP) Camp in Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria. The camp provides vital healthcare services, including medication, family planning counseling, and skills training for girls and women affected by the Boko Haram insurgency. Photo: STEFAN HEUNIS/AFP/Getty Images
However, in health centers and camp clinics across Maiduguri, dozens of women queued patiently in the heat, saying that they would happily wait three or four hours to be seen. While some of the women in Bakassi camp had decided to come without telling their husbands, 25-year-old Zuwaira Ali could not stop smiling as she attended her latest antenatal check-up.
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“My husband knows my check-up schedule, and even reminds me when I have my next visit,” said Ali, who had not been able to afford antenatal care for her first four pregnancies in Gwoza, the first town Boko Haram fighters claimed control of in 2014. Many like Ali are considering family planning for the first time in a country where only around one in 20 married women use contraception, according to the Population Reference Bureau.
December 2017 — Population Connection 23