KARACHI: Education is the only way to empower women and raise their status in the society, said Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho on Wednesday in an awareness seminar tilted ‘Adolescent Health and Life Skill Based Education’.
The seminar was arranged by Dow University of Health Science (DUHS) at Moin Auditorium of the Dow Medical College.
Addressing the audience, Dr Pechuho talked about the importance of family planning for improving the development indicators of Pakistan and also for improving women and children’s’ health and for reducing maternal and child mortality.
She advised medical students to not just counsel their patients about family planning and Planned Parenthood but also think about their own lives so that they know when they are ready to have families; how many children they would have; the way they would like to bring up their children and learn to be responsible parents in future.
She further said education is the only way to empower women and to raise their status in society. “Unless we educate our girls, they will continue to suffer violence like, rapes, gang rapes, acid attacks and domestic violence,” she said.
She said Sindh is the first province to have passed the child marriage law and increased the girls’ age of marriage to 18.
Dr Sadia Pal, vice president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, talked about population overload in Pakistan and said: “We are the sixth most populous country in the world and by 2050 we are expected to become 4th most populous country after China, India and USA. [To avoid this] We need to promote family planning counseling and services, particularly postpartum family planning to improve our CPR and reduce unmet need and improve the health of women and children.”
“These are huge area wise countries, whereas we are a small country but our population will be at par with them, while we are already short of resources like water, food, electricity, jobs and health infrastructure. Our maternal mortality is one of the highest in the world and contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) is only 35%. We have an unmet need for contraceptive services of 20%,” she implored.
Muneeza from Aahung organization talked about Life Skills Based Education which can empower children by giving them information, developing the right kind of values and attitudes and certain personal skills which can help in reducing the incidence of child sexual abuse and sexual violence. These skills consist of enhancing their self-esteem, positive thinking,problem-solving, decision making, and interpersonal skills.
