KARACHI, Nov 21: Highlighting the importance of reproductive health in Pakistani society, a large number of speakers at a seminar, held here on Thursday, stressed the need for the introduction of reproductive health as a subject at higher secondary level.

The seminar was organized by Pakistan Voluntary Health and Nutrition Association.

The speakers observed that there were a lot of issues, pertaining to adolescence, people face when they feel certain physical variations emerging in their bodies while entering into adolescent age. Quite a large number of them, they noted, fail to even understand such variations.

The speakers blamed ‘social taboo’ for the youngsters’ dilemma and said that they appeared too shy to discuss the physical variations with their parents or elders because of the social taboo.

Observing lack of an essentially important communication between the two generations on the subject, the speakers recounted the adverse effects of the young generation’s ultimate choice in pursuit of knowledge.

The speakers called for the availability of a channel, easily accessible to the people of all ages, providing correct information on all the minor and major issues of reproductive health. They said that youngsters did often expose to incorrect information on physical variation, their natural causes and certain medical problems some of the individuals face.

The wrong and misleading information, they argued, eventually lead the innocent to refer to extortionists and racketeers who have established ‘health centres’ in the disguise of clinics. Such quacks usually offer ‘miraculous cure’ to the confused innocent youngsters, as well as illiterate adults, describing their normal physical variations as ‘a serious disease’, the speakers pointed out.

The speakers further noted that walls of almost all the streets of small and big towns are littered with graffiti and sign boards luring the ignorant people to their well-organized network of extortion. The ultimate result, they said, was clear that most of these misled people ruin their health.

They urged the government to take stern action against the quacks and their cronies who were playing havoc with the public health.

They also criticized the ‘class-based’ education system and# said that the syllabus of all government and private educational institutions must be same and of a high standard.

Mentioning the frustration prevailing among the unemployed youth in the country, they speakers urged the government to take an appropriate action for their rehabilitation as most of them had resorted to using drugs. The menace of drug-addiction, they added, had been touching an alarming level.

They also deplored gender bias in the society particularly mentioning social attitudes under which male children enjoy privilege as against the female ones. They called for effective steps to inculcate a social change that could give way to equal opportunities to both the genders in education, employment, sports, etc.

Earlier, office-bearers of Pakistan Voluntary Health and Nutrition Association informed the participants of the seminar that the association was established in 1979 and, in association with other CBOs and NGOs, was providing services in the field of reproductive health to a large number of people.

They said that the association had been organizing training camps and workshops to create awareness among people, particularly the youth, on reproductive health issues.

Yasmeen Sabih Qazi, Begum Qamar Aftab, Abdul Qayoom, Jabeen Abbas, Dr Seema were among those who spoke on the occasion.