By UNFPA Pakistan Country Office | Country Office Director
When emergencies strike, life can change in an instant. With your help, UNFPA continues to respond to emergencies around the world to protect the reproductive health of communities in crisis.
In July 2010, monsoon rains fell across Pakistan, causing devastating floods and significant damage to human life, livestock and property. Over 20 million people were affected, of which 6 million were in need of immediate humanitarian assistance. Massive displacement, poor living conditions, overcrowding in camps and lack of privacy, disruption of social networks and social norms and destruction of health and other support facilities exacerbated the already acute vulnerabilities of women and girls to sexual and other forms of gender-based violence.
Emergencies affect women differently. In the rush to provide assistance, some critical needs may be forgotten. "Women have special needs because they continue to give birth, regardless of the dangers surrounding them, and require medical care to ensure safe delivery," former UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said at the time.
UNFPA responded quickly to Pakistan's needs. Clean delivery kits, women's hygiene kits, and newborn kits were distributed to over 2 million women who were more than 6 months pregnant. Clinical delivery assistance kits were also given to hospitals and mobile service units to perform normal deliveries and to stabilize patients with serious complications.
UNFPA also deployed fully-staffed and equipped mobile service units to provide emergency reproductive health care and psychosocial support.
As it did in Pakistan, UNFPA continues to address women’s unique needs in Pakistan and around the world. Today, UNFPA is still helping pregnant women affected by the flood by providing equipment and medicine, including safe delivery kits.
Please continue to support UNFPA in this work to help ensure that, when a conflict or natural disaster occurs, every pregnant woman can give birth to her child in a clean and safe environment. You can help us raise awareness and funding by passing this e-mail along to friends and family and asking them to make a gift to our project on the GlobalGiving site (www.globalgiving.com - search for "UNFPA"). Thank you!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
