Top clerics of the three Muslims' sects have joined hands with a non-governmental organisation in launching a mass awareness and advocacy campaign on reproductive health rights of youth in Pakistan. This was stated by Lifeline's Chief Executive Omer Aftab while addressing the launching of the campaign in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa here in Peshawar Press Club (PPC) on Thursday. The nation-wide, campaign named 'Hayat' had already been launched in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
Under the multi-media campaign, the organisation will disseminate message through television, community theatre, outdoor and musical events that will focus on relevant message for youth. The Lifeline's Chief Executive said that in Pakistan only 29 percent girls and 41 percent boys had access to correct information about puberty and hygiene in Pakistan. "The lack of reliable information is shaping behaviour and practices of majority of the youth who do not have skills and confidence to turn knowledge into decision making."
The purpose of the campaign is to address the physical and emotional challenges of adolescents and suggest ways to handle them. Omer Aftab said it was worthwhile to mention here that "our religion discusses adulthood through Qura'an and Sunnah to teach right practices."
He said they had consulted a large number of religious scholars from three sects in this regard who had further educated us on the religious aspect of these matters. "Lack of proper guidance can lead adolescent to choose wrong company and fall for bad habits," he said, while quoting Maulana Raghib Husain Naeemi, Head of Jamia Naeemiya Karachi while stressing the importance of right guidance for adolescents.
Highlighting the attitude of parents, Aftab said there were parents did not want to answer to questions relating to physical and physiological issues and hence the project also targeted the caretakers (parents and teachers) to motivate them to discuss those issues with their children/students so youth may not indulge in self exploration of information out of their natural urge.
"Emotional and physical changes taking place during adolescence play an important role in forming the personality traits of the youth as the remaining years of life merely become reflection of those traits," added Aftab. Underlining the importance of acquiring proper information and guidance on the subject, he feared that absence of proper information and guidance or reluctance to share any such information may lead to self-deduced and half-baked facts that might develop certain fallacies, far removed from reality and might in some cases, lead to exploitation.
Omer Aftab said, "Our religion does not forbid us from discussing or imparting proper guidance to the children on these sensitive issues." He added the issue should not be labelled as socially proscribed topic and parents especially in middle and lower middle classes should discuss those issues with their children. Talking on the most sensitive issues, Omer Aftab said it was very unfortunate that most of the couples were either ignorant of the importance of birth-spacing or they had a careless attitude towards it.
He said only four percent of married girls of 15 to 19 years of age used contraceptives and only 11 percent of the women in the age group of 20 to 24 years. "Islam encourages at least two years of birth spacing by assigning mother, the duty of breast-feeding."
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