Resolution of women's issues stressed: 10th anniversary of Cairo moot
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Jan 31: Speakers at a seminar on Monday said that though the country is a signatory to the 1994 Cairo Conference held to solve women issues and improve their status
, very little has been done in that direction despite the passage of over a decade.
Speaking at the seminar on "Cairo Call - are we listening", organized by a non-governmental organization working on women reproductive health issues, Marie Stopes, experts said that slow improvement was noted in the health indicators, particularly in the field of women health, which reflected that very little, if any, progress had been made on the issue.
Sindh Population Planning Secretary Mushtaq Memon, director-general federal population ministry Mahroo Humayoon, UNFPA Sindh Nasreen Khan, Yahya Waliullah, Sadiqa Jaferry, Dr Shamim of Orangi Pilot Project, Mehtab Karim, Ehson Rabbani, Akhlaq Ghouri, Yasmeen S Qazi, Mohsina Bilgrami and others also spoke.
They said a lot had to be done to bring about improvement in the situation and both the government as well as the non-governmental sectors had to join hands and work together, because it could not be single-handedly managed either by the government or the NGOs.
They said that at the tenth anniversary of the Cairo moot, there was very little to celebrate, and there was a serious reason to think about the dismal situation of maternal health indicators.
They said that between 25,000 and 30,000 women died every year during pregnancy/delivery and over 250,000 others suffered for life due to pregnancy-related complications, adding that the number could be brought down drastically if sincere efforts were made.
They said that over four million babies were born annually and around 80 per cent of them were born at home under the supervision of traditional birth attendants, majority of whom were not properly trained, which many a times led to deaths and complications for the mothers and the new born babies.
They said that over nine million abortions were carried out in the country annually, and as the abortions were illegal, unless medically required, over whelming majority of these were carried out by untrained people working illegally.
They said overwhelming majority of these abortions were due to unwanted pregnancies, which could have been avoided if the awareness and service delivery in the field of reproductive health was effective.
Stressing that better and efficient reproductive health services were essential, as according to them, various studies had shown that a large number of people knew about the contraceptives, but very few used these owing to difficulties that they faced in getting the contraceptives.
They also presented a case study in which it was revealed that out of over 200 couples that were registered in a family welfare centre in Punjab, only 10 per cent could be traced, which proved that fake entries had been made to meet the targets or show performance.
They also called for creating awareness regarding HIV and AIDS, and said that it was a long process to convince the people to adopt behavioural changes. They also stressed that the youth, which was one of the largest group of population and were more vulnerable to these diseases, be focused, so that the threat from these deadly diseases could be countered.
Stressing the government to revive the National Trust for Population Welfare (NETPOW), they said that though over a couple of years had lapsed, the Trust had not been activated by the government, owing to which a large number of NGOs working at the grassroots level had been forced to close down.
They said that it was for the first time that elections had been held in the NETPOW, so the bureaucrats were using the delaying tactics in making it operational, so that the three-year term of the elected people should end and the officers could once again do whatever they wanted without any check from the elected representatives.
