By Matṧeliso Phulane
The Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF) along with Gender Links and Safaids project held a workshop to deliberate on the challenges and progress achieved in sexual and reproductive health projects this week.
The theme of the workshop was to promote a complete understanding of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
Speaking at the workshop, Tṧeliso Molise, who is the Senate Clerk said the aim of the workshop was to capacitate committee members on the new democracy and human rights elements of the SRHR project, review the project performance, evaluation as well as equipping Members of Parliament to identify SRHR projects.
On behalf of SADC PF ‘Mammehela Matamane who works as the officer under SRHR HIV and governance said the sponsor identified the main critical issues in Lesotho which includes, sexual gender based violence and inequality, early marriages, unintended pregnancy and safe abortion. Commodity security and access to SRHR and HIV related services and LGBTQI community discrimination are also the critical issues were also featuring as some of the challenges.
The project was established in 2019 and ends in 2023. It was set to end this year but fortunately the sponsors have extended it until next year in order to incorporate the issues of democracy and human rights in their activities.
“On the strengthening of this mandate the SADC Parliamentary Forum applied for a sponsorship for a three-year project that has been implemented in collaboration with the national parliaments. All the activities that have been approved under this project work hand in hand with the Members of Parliament and the Senate.” Matamane said.
On behalf of Gender Links, the country manager, ‘Manteboheleng Mabetha, indicated that their project was also assigned for two years. She explained that during the Covid 19 lockdown their project focused mainly on domestic violence after being aware of the mounting cases.
“We have also noticed the rising of teenage pregnancy and early marriages because of the schools shut down. Unsafe abortion also became an issue, as young girls had access on Facebook pages that provide such services.” Mabetha said.
Mabetha expressed that consequently, unsafe abortion lead to severe bleeding that may cause related health problems leading to deaths. It surfaced that some boys impregnate girls and thereafter decline to care for them.
On the other hand, Mamofuta Kale from the Safaids project appealed to the Members of Parliament to sustain the project workshop which ends next week.
“We have made a huge progress that became beneficial to the youth. There is social accountability monitoring project in Leribe where the youths and teenagers to educate each other on issues of SRHR.” Kale said.
There is also a Mobi Safaid application which deals with holding the government accountable for youths to access good health care services and allow them to lay complaints in case they encounter poor service delivery.
