Srinagar, Apr 1: A day-long awareness-cum-medical camp was organised by Kashmir University’s Centre for Women’s Studies and Research (CWSR) at Gutlibagh and Warpash areas of district Ganderbal on Friday.
Director CWSR Prof Tabassum Firdous said the day-long programme was organised to raise awareness among adolescent girls and women about reproductive health and its different aspects.
Adolescence is a vulnerable age for susceptibility to many health issues such as urinary tract infections due to improper menstrual hygiene, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), unexpected pregnancies from the lack of awareness about contraceptive practices, and lack of proper guidance about sexual health, according to experts.
“The main aim of the programme was to educate women beneficiaries about how to first address and then dismantle all forms of stigma, unwelcoming norms and traditions, and also other inadvertent forms of socio-cultural practices that structurally impede women from talking about such issues,” Prof Firdous said.
Prof Firdous, who inaugurated the programme, highlighted how young women in particular have special reproductive health needs before, during and after the child-bearing age.
She concluded by focusing on how limited knowledge about reproductive health issues make women more vulnerable to various diseases, infections including HIV/AIDS/STDs, substance abuse, sexual violence and exploitation.
The medical professionals who accompanied CWSR team included Dr Farah and Dr Urba, who attentively heard a plethora of questions, posed by women of all ages and answered these satisfactorily.
Dr Roshan Ara, Assistant Professor, CWSR also spoke on the occasion and focused on the socio-cultural and socio-political manifestations of health in general and reproductive health in particular and how ignorance in the regard has pushed women on the backburner.
The programme was facilitated by Zahid Parvaz Chowdery, a social activist.