Women MNAs better equipped to advocate for sexual reproductive health and rights |01 September 2015

Women in parliaments are now better equipped to advocate for and influence national responses to sexual reproductive health and rights as well as HIV/Aids issues.

This is now possible after they recently followed a two-day capacity-building training under the SADC Parliamentary Forum supported by the Swedish government.

Focused on encouraging women elected to political positions to be effective and competent in office once elected to parliament, the project was designed to turn women parliamentarians into champions of sexual reproductive health and rights and HIV/Aids issues.

This is because “in the modern world, women’s empowerment is not merely a goal but a cornerstone of democratic growth. This is because women raise issues  that others overlook, devote energy to projects that others ignore, reach out to constituencies that others neglect and help societies move forward together”, Madeleine Albright, a Czechoslovakia-born American politician and diplomat who is the first woman to have become the United States secretary of state once said.

A number of stakeholders identified as directly or indirectly concerned by the above mentioned health matters are already addressing them namely  key HIV/Aids managers, family planning nurses, youth health officers, and social workers.

This is because they could collaborate with the parliamentarians on taking into account that they can also offer a unique perspective on areas that need parliamentarian oversight and intervention.

The training, which was held at the National Assembly at Ile Du Port, was led by an expert and director of programmes from the Southern Africa Development Community Parliamentary Forum (SADC-PF), Boemo Sekgoma.

The clerk of the National Assembly Shelda Commettant launched the training.

“We are privileged to be part of this project,” Ms Commettant said, noting that Seychelles has got a comprehensive primary health care system that is free and accessible to all.

“We have established universal access to immunisation and key child survival interventions, we have universal access to emergency obstetrical care, with skilled midwives,” she also pointed out, but stressed on the fact that Seychelles still has a lot to accomplish to bring a better service to the community.

“We recognise though that we still have much more to do with the emergence of new and alarming trends such as the increase in teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, and new cases of HIV/Aids and legislation that constraint effective delivery of sexual reproductive health and rights and HIV/Aids services to the youth among others,” Ms Commettant stressed.

Thanking SADC for such an important training Ms Commettant expressed the hope that the parliamentarians can now develop a closer working partnership for strengthened engagement and faster interventions in access to sexual reproductive health and rights and HIV/Aids services.