UNICEF promotes health, education through religious leaders

Sitting around low tables, Haji Shamsokhan, a 55-year-old religious leader, was deep in discussion with his peers in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Wednesday. "Let's take this seriously. It's our responsibility to raise awareness on women's health and girls' education," the white bearded Shamsokhan emphasised, while addressing a gathering of some 60 religious leaders. The gathering is one of the series of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)- initiated workshops to improve the lives of women and children by working through religious practitioners, particularly in conservative rural areas. "For organisations like UNICEF, which aims to promote issues like girls' education and women's health, having the support of the religious community is essential," Edward Carwardine, a UNICEF spokesman, told IRIN in Jalalabad. Carwardine added that UNICEF had decided to work with 75,000 religious leaders in every district of the country, particularly in areas where girls' school enrolment was low and women's health was especially poor. "These workshops are to assist religious leaders to become even better and more powerful messengers in the rights of children and women," he said. Women's health, and in particular maternal mortality (one Afghan woman dies every 20 minutes during or after childbirth), remains one of the top concerns in the post-conflict country. According to the Ministry of Women's Affairs, in some rural areas men do not let their female relatives out of the home even for medical treatment. Despite successes in girls' education since the ousting of the Taliban in late 2001, UNICEF estimates that 1.5 million girls of primary school age are still deprived of education. Religious leaders still hold enormous influence in Afghan society, so the UNICEF workshops try to get them to understand the advantages of healthier families and educated girls, and preach such messages whenever possible. "We are important people, and of course we want the family to be healthy, the people listen to us, so generally we are happy to say this," Shamsokhan emphasised, while sipping tea after the workshop. Another religious leader told IRIN that preaching in this way increased his standing in the local community. Health workers also endorse UNICEF's approach. "If a mullah gives safe health instructions or highlights the values of education, this message is more trusted and people act on it more readily than on the word of a medical doctor or an education specialist," Najia Shirzad, a health worker at the women's ministry told IRIN. The three-day Jalalabad workshop gathered religious leaders from four eastern provinces. They concluded the workshop endorsing safe motherhood, girls' education and the vaccination of children and women, among others. UNICEF said the ultimate test of the new initiative would be whether there were real improvements on the ground based in part in a change in attitudes. "We hope to see a general change in the way communities view their children," the UNICEF spokesman ascertained. Carwardine acknowledged that an improvement in rural infrastructure would be needed to complement the work of religious leaders. UNICEF had committed itself to build 10,000 community-based schools in areas where there were no formal schools. Meanwhile, the UN agency said, in addition to supporting midwifery training in rural areas, 28 emergency obstetric care centres were being established around the country to help reduce the very high maternal mortality figures.