Defending girls’s well being in Bangladesh — World Points

Sunamganj is a district within the wetland ecosystem in northeast Bangladesh, which is especially weak to local weather change. Floods arrive rapidly and immediately and might final for weeks. They disrupt life, displace households and lower off entry to providers.

For the over 670,000 girls of reproductive age dwelling within the space, more and more excessive climate occasions are threatening their entry to reproductive healthcare.

Preparation and planning

To assist put together for these crises, UNFPA is coaching reproductive-aged girls to guard themselves and their youngsters in the course of the subsequent flood.

Shakila Akhter, a 24-year-old mom of two, was eight months pregnant over the past flood.

“Due to the coaching I acquired, I knew what to hold, the right way to put together and the right way to defend my household,” she recalled. She now makes use of household planning instruments she didn’t find out about earlier than: “I need to select once I’m prepared for an additional baby.”

She additionally underscored the hyperlink between local weather change and these extreme floods: “We perceive that the local weather has modified over the previous 20 years. In Bangladesh, the flood season has change into longer, sudden floods are extra frequent, heatwaves have intensified, and winters are actually shorter.

“So, all of us must be ready to handle it to outlive.”

Native volunteers

This coaching is made attainable by volunteers educated to assist others put together for local weather shocks.

Shakila Begum, 26, started volunteering with simply two days of coaching. She works with the Local weather Resilience Well being System and Neighborhood initiative – supported by the UNFPA and the Swedish Worldwide Growth Cooperation Company – which educates girls on matters from menstruation to childbirth throughout floods.

Ms. Begum is now the purpose of contact for 75 households, serving to them with points like household planning and maternal healthcare.

“One lady had dangerously hypertension simply earlier than giving start,” she recalled. “I suggested her household to go to the native hospital, the place she safely delivered – utterly freed from price.”

Empowerment by means of protected areas

The initiative additionally provides protected group areas the place girls can find out about sexual and reproductive well being.

In Kurban Nagarn, an space in Sunamganj, volunteers have begun internet hosting “road dramas”. The volunteers act out scenes associated to points equivalent to maternal well being, catastrophe preparedness and baby marriage prevention, with over 500 folks attending every efficiency.

Taskira Hauque Tazin, an area pupil, is among the shifting theatre’s core members. She has attended many conferences in Bangladesh and overseas, the place she shares her experiences and is recognised for her work.

“I really feel proud to work for girls’s empowerment and to help underprivileged communities. By way of these performs, we increase consciousness so that girls don’t fall behind. We need to cease early marriage, promote ladies’ training, and make sure that girls get entry to maternal well being care,” she stated. “Whether or not it’s within the solar, rain, or storm – we’ll hold doing this work for the folks.”

Anima Akhter, a 24-year-old mom in Kurban Nagarn, defined that the road dramas present a protected area for tough conversations: “We need to share our issues, particularly about our our bodies – however we frequently can’t converse.”

With the help of native volunteers, Anima delivered her youngest baby safely on the hospital.

Amina’s husband, Nurul, now accompanies her to group classes and has change into a task mannequin in the neighborhood, receiving coaching from volunteers to show his neighbours about girls’s and ladies’ well being.

“Since my spouse underwent coaching, I took it very severely and felt impressed to assist our neighbours, particularly regarding girls’s and ladies’ well being,” he stated. “I usually speak about these essential messages with different males on the tea stall, encouraging them to be ready for disasters and to take the identical precautions.

“I urge them to hunt assist from service suppliers in the event that they face any issues, particularly regarding pregnant girls’s deliveries and household planning strategies.”

Ongoing challenges

However challenges stay regardless of one of the best efforts of the UNFPA and different UN companions.

In flood-prone villages in Sunamganj, over half of deliveries nonetheless happen at dwelling.

Many ladies and ladies additionally nonetheless really feel disgrace discussing matters like menstruation, and cultural norms typically prohibit girls who try to generate their very own revenue.

These vulnerabilities confronted by girls and ladies are exacerbated by climate-related disasters, which frequently hit them the toughest.

Continued commitments

From 28 to 31 July, world specialists convened on the World Symposium on Local weather Justice and Impacted Populations in Brasília, co-hosted by UNFPA and the Authorities of Brazil.

There, leaders labored to handle the disproportionate influence of local weather change on girls and ladies. The occasion known as for gender-inclusive local weather negotiations and a renewed dedication to understanding the influence local weather change has on sexual and reproductive well being and rights.

Diene Keita, Appearing Government Director of UNFPA, highlighted the gendered influence of local weather change on the occasion: “The proof tells us that local weather change is growing the danger of maternal mortality, disrupting entry to contraceptives and growing the danger of gender-based violence.”

“Our collective efforts must strengthen the resilience of girls, ladies and well being programs to face up to and adapt to local weather shocks,” Ms. Keita careworn. “Being ready, responding quickly, and constructing ahead higher have to be central pillars for our work.”