Engender Health Bangladesh (EHB) and the HERproject of the BSR (Business for Social Responsibility) teamed up on Tuesday to undertake collaborative efforts to increase women’s health awareness and access to health services especially in the garment sector. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the EHB and the BSR to that end at the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) headquarters in the city. The purpose of this MOU is to undertake collaborative efforts to enhance access to improved family planning and reproductive health information and services for women working in the readymade garment sector in Bangladesh, a statement said. The EHB will provide technical assistance to the BSR’s HERhealth programme, the mission of which is to increase women’s health awareness and access to health services through sustainable workplace programmes. EHB will provide support to HERhealth’s three local NGO partners-Change Associates and Awaj Foundation in Dhaka and Mamata in Chittagong-to strengthen HERhealth’s curriculum and awareness-raising activities on family planning services, it added. Through the partnership, EHB will build the capacity of factory-based health care providers to educate women on available services as well as strengthen referral linkages between participating factories and private facilities that provide these services. “Garment workers usually are of reproductive age and a good part of them are married and young couple but their awareness of and access to family planning services particularly long acting reversible contraceptive and permanent method (LARC&PM) uptake is very low,” Abu Jamil Faisel, Country Representative of EHB, said. EHB has been working in some ready-made garment factories and this partnership will expand its activities in more garment factories that will help HERproject partner factories’ workers get proper information about different family planning methods and increase uptake of LARC&PM, he added. BGMEA is the platform of around 4,222 member factories where 5.4 million people are engaged and 70 per cent of them are women. Welcoming the move, BGMEA vice president Md Nasir said reproductive health and family planning is a big concern of BGMEA for keeping its workers in good health and benefit the garment business of Bangladesh. “Women working in Bangladesh’s RMG sector face serious health risks related to a lack of access to reproductive health and family planning information and services. HERproject, which was launched in Bangladesh in 2010, has demonstrated that the workplace provides exceptional opportunities to improve this access,” HERproject Associate Director Chhavi Ghuliani said.
