Reproductive health issues: Speakers for empowering women

Say politicians need to be reminded of their promises to empower women.

ISLAMABAD:

Though political parties and leaders make tall claims of empowering women if they are voted in to power, few practical efforts are made to deliver on their ‘much-hyped promises’ once in the saddle.

Despite constituting 50 per cent population, women in Pakistan still struggle to have, among other things, access to good health and education services.

Speakers at a national consultation titled “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for all, NOW” have called for ensuring easy and decent healthcare services to women seeking consultation on reproductive health and family planning. The event was organised by the Shirkat Gah Women’s Resource Centre on Monday at a local hotel.

According to the available data, half the women in Pakistan get married before turning 18, and nine per cent begin bearing children between the ages of 15 and 19. Meanwhile, deaths from pregnancy-related complications stand at 276 per 100,000 live births.

Shirkat Gah Women Resource Centre Head Dr Tabinda Sarosh said that despite representing half the population and contributing to the nation’s economy through formal and informal labour, women continue to be socially, politically and economically marginalised.

She said that the evidence collected from the Shirkat Gah’s two-year research on Pakistan’s progress towards meeting the millennium development goals indicated that the problem of poor health delivery services lies in bad governance and lack of transparency.

She said that it also pointed towards gaps that impede women’s access to quality reproductive health services including family planning and safe abortions.

Planning Division Population Chief Shahzad Malik told The Express Tribune that allocations under the public sector development programme for population welfare have been increased substantially this year to take the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) from the current 35 per cent to 55 per cent in 2020.

“We have the funds. Now what we require the most is a strong political commitment and proper utilisation of these funds to achieve the desire goals,” he said.

Malik said that 4,500 outlets were currently providing family planning services alongside 14,000 healthcare centres across the country, which he felt were still insufficient to cater to the needs of the growing population.

“There is a need to extend and expand these centres to provide maximum family planning services,” he said.

Punjab Population Welfare Department Secretary Altaf Ezid Khan said that there was a need to understand that sexual reproductive health was not just a clinical or health issue, but also a social issue.

For this, he said, there was a need of strong advocacy at the community level, besides providing teenagers with an understanding of their bodies.

“For this, the government should establish counselling cells at the family welfare centres across the country,” he said. Dr Adnan Khan from Research and Development Solutions said, “In our society, if an unmarried girl wanted to know about family planning, birth and other reproductive health related issues, she is given offensive labels.”

He said that if a lady health worker visits a home, elders in the family often bar unmarried girls from being part of any discussion.

Dr Khan said that unless women were educated about their sexual reproductive rights, family planning services would prove ineffective.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2013.