The Asia Pacific Alliance (APA) is hosting its annual meeting in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. An appropriate location, given the theme of this year's meeting, Refugees and Migrants and their access to Sexual and Reproductive Health.
Conference attendees heard first from fellow APA members, Planned Parenthood Association of Thailand (PPAT) and Population and Community Development Association (PDA), who introduced the migrant and refugee situation through their experiences.
Next, advocates from the Mobile Obstetric Maternal Health Workers (MOM) Project, which delivers maternal health services among internally displaced populations in Eastern Burma; Friends International, which works with street children; the Adolescent Reproductive Health Network on the Thai/Myanmar border; and China Youth Network/Youth Coalition each shared their organization's work with migrant and refugee populations.
A few key takeaways: first, the rights issue is critically important in the context of refugees. Often, these individuals are fleeing an unsafe environment in their home country, circumstances where their rights were almost certainly being ignored or abused. In the new "host" country, because reactions are mixed to the influx of migrants and refugees can often be seen as a burden, the provision of basic reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP) services could be viewed as refugee population control.
Second, all advocates for sound reproductive health policy need to begin advocating for inclusion of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in national reproductive health strategies, policies and initiatives. Otherwise, the services and supplies demanded by a refugee situation have to be negotiated and purchased in separate agreements, creating additional delivery systems in a field already overcrowded with competing systems.
PAI's work on both The Security Demographic and The Shape of Things to Come has been our organization's first foray into linking the fields of reproductive health and family planning with those engaged in the security and post-conflict arenas. Additionally, through our Policy Impact Project, we have discussed with partners in the Reproductive Health Access, Information and Services in Emergencies (RAISE) Initiative the particular challenge of providing integrated and comprehensive RH services in emergency settings.
The 2008 APA conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand, has only confirmed for me the importance of this work, and how PAI must remain committed to its further exploration and investigation: on behalf of colleagues here in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as anywhere else conflict and disaster -- both man-made and natural -- are threatening the rights and lives of women and their families.
Read Suzanne's first post from the APA conference!
Leave a comment