KARACHI Abortion, in most cases performed in an unsafe environment, has become a primary method of family planning in Pakistan as there is an acute lack of good family planning services in rural areas inhabited by 65 to 70 per cent of the country's population. No post-abortion care is available either in these areas.
Another issue that poses a serious threat to women's health as well as to the life of the foetus is domestic violence. To address that, physicians must realise that the women cannot be treated in isolation and they need to look deeper into the whole social context in order to better understand their health issues.
These were some of the important points highlighted at a seminar “Women's issues are issues of power/social relations”, organised by the Working Group for Women at the Aga Khan University at the AKU auditorium on Tuesday.
Presenting the findings of a qualitative study that was conducted to know the impact of the government's reproductive health policies on rural communities in Sindh and Punjab, Dr Saman Yazdani Khan of Shirkat Gah-Women's Resource Centre, said that two villages were selected for the purpose and the research team found an increased awareness regarding reproductive health issues in those areas.
“But, there was also widespread dissatisfaction with the performance of the government health units operating there as they didn't offer any facility for reproductive health,” she said, adding that the situation forced most women to go to private health facilities.
Women at the selected sites, she said, were also found to have support of their community, husbands and, at times, in-laws when they went to seek medical help on reproductive health. Home remedies, however, were still popular amongst the poor, who were deprived of any alternate support.
Dr Yazdani said that the women belonging to the minority groups were the most troubled when it came to seeking support for family planning.
Their problem was compounded by the fact that their communities didn't have any social service of their own, she added.
The study also found that lady health workers, whose primary task was to deliver primary health care and family planning services, were now being used solely for anti-polio campaigns. A large number of people were also found to have misconceptions about family planning methods. The high cost of safe induced abortion was also an issue.
Sharing the results of her study on domestic violence and impact on maternal/foetal health, Dr Nighat Shah, a consultant at the Aga Khan University Hospital, said that almost 36 per cent of married women experienced severe maternal/foetal consequences as a result of violence.
She said that the data collected from hospitals in Karachi showed that husbands were perpetrators in 50 per cent cases while husband and mother-in-laws were both responsible in 30 per cent cases. The abuse by mother-in-law was mostly verbal while it was physical in case of husband, she said.“Most of the women were dependent on men for financial support and had little or no education. Around 62 per cent of the women reported at the health facility with pain. Sixty per cent were malnourished and anaemic.”
Dr Dilshad Ashraf, Dr Kausar Waqar, M. Akbar Sajid, Alia Nasir and Kausar S. Khan also spoke.
