By Amanda Seller, President, MSI United States
In the Northern Central region of Burkina Faso, Yvette Yoda is part of a team of mobile midwives working to provide life-saving reproductive healthcare services to women and girls who have been forced from their homes by violence.
More than two million people are internally displaced in Burkina Faso, with many living in camps. Yvette makes the difficult journey to reach them because she knows how important it is for women facing a crisis to be able to control their own futures.
Why is reproductive choice important in emergency settings?
Women and girls face additional risks in humanitarian settings that make the need for sexual and reproductive healthcare more urgent.
· Gender-based and sexual violence increase in times of conflict and during natural disasters, putting women at risk of STIs and unwanted pregnancies.
· Preventable pregnancy-related deaths increase in crisis settings.
· Girls face a higher rate of forced or early marriage when the stability of the home is threatened.
· Transmission rates of sexually transmitted infections and HIV increase in emergencies, as do rates of unsafe abortion.
When the future is uncertain, many woman want to prevent unintended pregnancies or end their pregnancies. But despite the increased need for reproductive healthcare services, governments tend to prioritize the provision of shelter, food, and water over contraception and safe abortion. This puts women at high risk.
Yvette Yoda is seeing this in Burkina Faso, where violent conflict has displaced millions. Women are eager to prevent unintended pregnancies, in part due to the increased risk of dying during childbirth. But without the services provided by MSI, they’d have few options to avoid an unwanted pregnancy.
MSI Reproductive Choices, one of the world’s leading providers of sexual and reproductive healthcare, works to ensure that women experiencing all types of crises are able to access the care they need. Bold providers like Yvette care for internally displaced people living in camps, providing a full range of reproductive healthcare services such as HIV testing, contraceptives and cervical cancer screening, as well as services specific to survivors of gender based sexual violence.
By bringing services to internally displaced women, we can ensure they continue to have control over their bodies — even without control over their location.
Climate crisis turned humanitarian crisis
When natural disasters like floods, droughts and storms hit, the climate crisis becomes a humanitarian crisis. Because women and girls are already vulnerable, they’re disproportionately impacted by displacement due to natural disasters.
In summer of 2022, over thirty million in Pakistan were affected by historic flooding due to heavy rains. When the flooding first began, accessing reproductive healthcare became nearly impossible. Driven from their homes, women sought ways to prevent unintended pregnancies or help with pre-natal care, but no services were available.
In response, MSI quickly began sending out teams of providers through the locally registered Marie Stopes Society (MSS). With specially equipped MSS vans, our teams were able to provide women with a range of services, from long-term birth control methods to delivery kits.
The worsening of the climate crisis means an increase in natural disasters — and an increase in women unable to access sexual and reproductive healthcare. In fact, MSI estimates that 14 million women will lose access to reproductive healthcare over the next decade due to climate change. Our courageous providers continue to go to the front lines of climate disasters, ensuring all women can access necessary healthcare.
Choice during a pandemic
When COVID-19 began, women faced obstacles accessing essential reproductive health services. We adapted and found solutions to ensure both our clients and team members stay safe.
During the first wave of national lockdowns, women in countries like Nepal were immediately impacted. Due to mobility restrictions, both clients and providers weren’t able to access MSI Nepal’s centers, which were forced to close. But the demand for reproductive health services continued. MSI Nepal’s contact centers were flooded with calls from women seeking sexual and reproductive services.
Sarita Ojha, a MSI Nepal counselor, remembered a call she received, “This woman was crying on the phone. ‘When will your services restart? I cannot afford to have another child. Please help me!’ It really broke my heart not to have an answer for her.”
MSI Nepal worked in partnership with local government to restore services as quickly as possible. They also expanded access to at-home abortion care, allowing women to receive abortion pills by courier and take them with support from the contact center. With clinics quickly re-opened and at-home care available, women were again able to access the services they needed.
Anywhere, any crisis
Whether it’s serving women in camps for the internally displaced or wading across flooded roads to reach women during climate-crisis impacted areas, our teams are dedicated to delivering women’s healthcare in all types of crises. We believe that, even in a disaster, women must be able to control their own bodies.
MSI Reproductive Choices is an international NGO working in 37 countries on six continents. MSI believes reproductive choice is fundamental to gender equality, girls’ education, women’s political and economic participation, climate resilience, poverty alleviation, health and wellbeing and many other interrelated issues. We deliver on our commitment to helping women make their own life decisions by making reproductive choice possible. As one of the world’s largest providers of contraception, safe abortion services and post-abortion care, MSI served more than 21.1 million people in 2022 through our 300 centers, hundreds of outreach teams, 1,000+ nurses and midwives. partnerships with government health ministries, and network of pharmacies and private providers.
MSI United States is a US 501(c)3 non-profit that supports the international NGO and has a perfect 100 score from Charity Navigator and a platinum rating from Candid.
For more information, visit msiunitedstates.org
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