Psychological health: ‘Govt must make good its youth policy promises’

Youth must be provided channels for counselling.

LAHORE:

The government must devise a strategy to implement the Punjab Youth Policy 2012, speakers at a dialogue on the Importance of Reproductive Health and Services for Youth said on Saturday.

The event was organised by the Pakistan Girl Guides Association and Plan International. Several MPAs and civil society organisations attended the dialogue.

Pakistan Girl Guides Association Project Director Samina Ejaz said the dialogue aimed to generate a debate regarding the importance of issues pertaining to the reproductive health and rights of adolescents. She said policy makers needed to highlight  the situation in the assembly and demand the implementation of the Youth Policy 2012.



Pakistan, the sixth most populous country in the world, has approximately 39.5 million people between the ages of 10 and 19 years. Plan International Project Coordinator Iftikhar Mubarik said these were the most vulnerable years of a person’s life. People in this age bracket go through psychological changes, he said. The way these years are spent affects the rest of their lives. If the youth are not guided “we could lose a vibrant generation that could play a crucial role in future,” he said.

Mubarik said the Youth Policy showed the government’s commitment towards initiating life-skills programmes and ending forced and early marriages.

MPA Aliya Aftab said it was important to come up with strategies to overcome mental and emotional health of the youth issues. She said it was important to provide the youth guidance and help them become responsible citizens. “Our society does not realise the importance of addressing psychological issues,” she said. “The term ‘mental’ is frequently used as a derogatory term for people seeking professional psychological help.” The profession itself was stigmatised.

MPA Nosheen Hamid and Farzana Butt also stressed the importance of establishing help lines to provide counselling services regarding psychological, emotional, reproductive health and career issues.

They said in the absence of proper channels, the youth turned to inappropriate ones for help. This exacerbates their problems and creates confusion, they said.

Some of the participants said the policy regarding reproductive health education in school curriculums needed to be implemented on priority, keeping in view the cultural and religious sensitivities.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2013.