Gender-Based Violence, Fistula Survivors & Women Leaders in Chad: Press Conference | United Nations

Press conference by Dr. Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), on her findings on her recent mission to Chad where she met with gender-based violence and fistula survivors, as well as women leaders.

The Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Natalia Kanem, today (7 Nov) said, “despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, Chad now hosts more than a million refugees, including newly some half a million who fled the conflict in Sudan over the past six months. Most women and children.”

Upon her return from a country visit to Chad last week, Kanem told journalists in New York that Chad “faces multiple challenges and a humanitarian emergency; instability, violence in neighbouring countries, and the disproportionate impact of a climate crisis - not of its own making - not to mention socio-economic and other development challenges.”

She said, “many of the women are victims of gender-based violence in the countries that they fled, and or in the camps where they're now living.”

“Everywhere in the world,” the UNFPA Executive Director said, “we are seeing women and girls forced to confront the worst of wars that they did not start. And what they need is peace, peace in their homes and communities.”

She said, “events such as in the Middle East over the past month, and again, Sudan, which is at the six-month mark of that conflict, are showing us just how fragile peace is, how easily it can be shattered, and how devastating this is for the most vulnerable particularly women and children.”

Kanem said UNFPA has assessed that “there are 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, none able to access regular maternal health care at this moment, and 5,500 new-borns were born during the course of the last month.”

She stressed that “if you have 180 women giving birth every day under these conditions, food, water, medicines, the access to caesarean sections and to care for the new-born, depend on fuel.”

Fuel has not been delivered into Gaza since the conflict started and reserves are running extremely low.

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