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| Inclusion of reproductive health in curriculum urged |
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Monday, November 23, 2009
Our correspondent
Islamabad
Reproductive health and gender education should be part of the curriculum for young people in order to bring long-term positive behaviour change in society.
This was recommended at the concluding session of district level advocacy seminar series. The event was organised by World Population Foundation (WPF) and attended by more than two hundred participants representing different stakeholders.
Realising the need to address the issues of Gender Based Violence in relation to reproductive health, the WPF in partnership with its six partner organisations in Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzaffargarh, Jacobabad, Kashmore, Nasirabad and Jaffarabad organised a two weeks campaign on ‘Community level activism to prevent and reduce gender based violence’ through which 60 community level advocacy and awareness raising seminars were organised in 249 towns and tehsils of these 6 districts.
Speakers said that negligence of reproductive health issues is a worst form of gender-based violence, causing major factor for higher maternal and infant mortality rate in the country, particularly in remote and neglected rural areas.
They pointed out that reproductive health is a crucial and important aspect of our society, but there is a communication gap between mother and daughters leading to misconceptions and dissemination of wrong information. “Proper and systematic education will prevent abuse and violence cases in society.”
They said that mass level efforts by different stakeholders to change behaviour and attitude is the key to reduce and prevent gender-based violence in rural and remote areas.
It was also concluded that communities have a strong role to play in this regard.
Member National Assembly Shahnaz Salim Malik emphasised for the proper implementation of domestic violence and prevention bill and harassment bill and also suggested that more programmes should be initiated for the economic empowerment of women in Pakistan, thus leading to less violence. She highlighted the pathetic state of women’s reproductive health and strongly suggested for better and carefully designed programmes focusing on reproductive health issues.
WPF Country Representative Qadeer Baig shared his expressions from the learning of the project and also differentiate between gender based violence and violence against women. He recommended strategies and road map for strong partnership between civil society organisations, government and media for prevention of gender-based violence.
Community Development Foundation (CDF) Chairman Sikandar Bakhtiar Khoso explained that gender based violence is a multi-dimensional and complex issue and requires holistic approach for addressing at various levels. He highlighted the role of different organisations and suggested strong partnership and efforts at community and district level for addressing the issue of gender based violence. Analyzing the trend of gender based violence and reproductive health status President,
The NEEDS Karim Mengal said that there is a huge difference between the data collected on local level as compared to the one gathered on national level by different other NGOs.
Since these violence cases are taking place in those districts hence it is possible for local newspapers to highlight all of them right after their incidence with full-fledged details. Constantly data findings from two different national level NGOs indicate that the number of violence cases in Muzaffargarh in the year 2008 were 60 whereas WPF’s partner NGO in Muzaffargarh analysed the local newspapers and it was learnt that 33 cases were reported by print media in five weeks, which is more than half of the cases in year 2008 mentioned by national level NGOs.
Similarly national level annual statistics of district Jacobabad, Kashmore, Jaffarabad and Nasirabad are 56, 49, 44, and 31 respectively. Whereas local newspaper analysis figures of violence cases in district Jacobabad is 76 cases in 11 days, Kashmore 36 in two weeks, Jaffarabad 13 cases in 5 days and Nasirabad 9 cases in 2 weeks.
Highlighting the highest trend of maternal mortality and infant mortality rate, Programme Manager WPF Anwar Muhammad emphasised for collective efforts for reducing this trend and emphasized for mass level efforts to address this issue. He shared that maternal mortality ratio in Pakistan is 276 deaths per 100,000 live births, though maternal mortality ratio is almost twice as high in rural than urban areas, and is highest in Balochistan 785.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
