Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban and the destruction caused to Haiti by a 7.92 magnitude earthquake have created two simultaneously unfolding humanitarian situations. Rachel Moynihan, Advocacy and Communications Specialist at the United Nations, sits down with us to discuss the work that UNFPA does to support and expand access to sexual and reproductive health and rights for populations in humanitarian settings, and how UNFPA is assisting in Afghanistan and Haiti specifically.

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency founded 50 years ago. UNFPA has three goals: 1) to end the unmet need of voluntary family planning; 2) to end preventable maternal deaths, and 3) to end gender-based violence. UNFPA is active in over 150 countries and territories, working in multiple humanitarian settings. UNFPA is able to gather the political will to address the reproductive health and rights needs of people in humanitarian settings while also providing critical on-the-ground services, supplies, and care.

The COVID-19 pandemic and climate disasters have further stressed the ability for UNFPA to reach populations that may be in need of sexual and reproductive health care, menstrual products, and protection from gender-based violence. Lockdowns, layoffs, and inability to attend school have increased rates of abuse, child marriage, female genital cutting.

In 2018, 1600 women per 100,000 were dying in childbirth Afghanistan, leading UNFPA to train 35 young women in the Gorom Harat region to become maternal midwives. Now, that rate hovers around 600. While that rate is still high, it’s lowering is due to safe maternal care and delivery services largely supported by UNFPA programming. UNFPA has also established 171 “family health houses” that provide 24/7 maternal health care in Afghanistan. If you’d like to hear more about the impact the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan may have on women and girls, you can find our recent podcast episode here.

On August 14th, a 7.92 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on the same fault line that caused a similarly devastating earthquake ten years prior. This earthquake, in the shadow of the pandemic, a recent presidential assassination, and consistent food insecurity and gang violence, has compounded the country’s humanitarian crisis. Over 200,000 people lost their lives in the earthquake, with 10,000 injured. Because hospitals have experienced severe damage, UNFPA has rushed supplies into Haiti, set-up mobile teams and distributed reproductive health kits.

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