UK-based Nigerian health practicioner, writer/producer, Kehinde Omoru, recently held the media screening for her cancer awareness movie, “Girls For Sale”, for the first time in Lagos, Nigeria.
The movie which is a result of her research work, features Nollywood stars like Jackie Appiah, Bolanle Ninalowo, I.K Ogbonna and a host of others.
Speaking with Channels TV, she said: “In the U.K, we do a lot of health promotional work. We do not wait until somebody is ill before we deliver health care to them. The health promotional aspect of my life which I have tried to play out is the writing of “Girls For Sale”.
She disclosed that she had to consult a few business partners and Nigerian doctors to inquire about the kind of Cancer common to women in the country.
“They all said ‘Cervical Cancer’. So I said ‘Okay, fine, let me find out how bad it is in Nigeria’ and I happened to get a lot of research and one major one from a body in Paris. It’s online now. It’s a 2019 review. It says that Cervical Cancer is endemic in Nigeria”.
Omoru, who lost her mother to breast Cancer at age 12, has since been committed to creating awareness of the virus through promotional programmes.
“Girls between age 15 and 45 are going about carrying, and they do not even know they have acquired it. It would take up to 10 years for a cervical cancer virus to actually play out.”
“This is an advocacy work that is saying to our young men and girls ‘be aware, you might be carrying the virus and there’s so many ways that we carry it; check out your lifestyle’. In no way am I being judgemental at all and that is why I have gone to Nollywood and asked them to come along with me and tell this story in a subtle way, but yet in a way that my fellow ladies and gentlemen will realize that this is a serious situation in Nigeria at the moment”.
‘Girls For Sale’ is scheduled to hit the cinemas later this year.
