ISLAMABAD: The International Rescue Committee (IRC) launched reproductive health initiative in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) which has widely covered the vulnerable segment of the society by alleviating the grim situation as the cases of domestic violence especially women’s health saw a rise in the aftermath of the pandemic-triggered lockdowns.
The situation was graver in communities with high rates of illiteracy and multi-dimensional poverty, Deputy Director Operations/Country Director (Acting), ICR, Tayyaba Aurangzeb expressed these views, at the conclusion of its Reproductive Health initiative, supported by Global Affairs Canada and implemented by Pakistan Village Development Programme (PVDP), said a news release issued here on Monday.
The ICR reproductive health initiative was launched in the KP province amid the rising incidents of domestic violence posing serious implications for women’s wellbeing, their sexual and reproductive health, mental health, and their ability to participate and lead in the recovery of our societies and economy.
Speaking about the IRC’s contribution to alleviating this grim situation, Tayyaba Aurangzeb said, “we launched an intervention to improve the health and safety of women and girls, with a focus on those with reduced access to reproductive health (RH) and gender-based violence (GBV) response services during the pandemic.”
During the course of the intervention, IRC delivered an essential and life-saving integrated package of GBV and RH interventions to women, adolescent girls, transgender people and men, in Swat and Peshawar districts, selected owing to a high need and minimal availability of SRH and GBV services.
IRC in partnership with the KP government, ensured delivery of health services including prenatal, natal, infant care, family planning, contraceptives, and nutritional counselling. In addition, IRC established 10 safe spaces to deliver psychological counselling, awareness and vocational training to those most in need in Swat and Peshawar.
Under this initiative, capacity-building exercises were also conducted so that women in the targeted districts had information, power, and resources to decide in case they wished to seek sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence response services, she said adding efforts were also made to ensure that women and girls at an individual and community level had the demonstrative capacity to respond when faced with a crisis situation.
The IRC official said that the committee hopes that this intervention will go a long way in creating an enabling environment to effectively respond to issues of reproductive health as well as gender-based violence in the province.
It is to be mentioned here that simultaneous to the COVID-19, the increased incidence of violence against women and girls globally led the United Nations to declare it as a “shadow pandemic”.