File photo: A general view shows a crowd and shops at Al Ataba, a market in central Cairo, Egypt February 10, 2020. (Reuters)
The US-based NGO Population Council has stressed the need to provide family planning and reproductive health services to Egyptian factory workers as well as the importance of fostering the role of the private sector in providing such services to Egyptian youth.
Nahla Abdel-Tawab, the director of the Population Council's Egypt office, stressed the importance of providing family planning and reproductive health services to workers in industrial facilities.
She noted that such services, which would reach a large segment of young people at the beginning of their married lives, should involve providing advice and promoting the use of family planning methods, as well as encourage the concept of the small family, she noted.
Hossam Abbas, head of the Population and Family Planning Sector at the Ministry of Health, stressed the importance of coordinating efforts between all concerned parties to help workers meet their needs for reproductive health services, family planning and disease prevention.
The Population Council invited the ministry’s population and family planning sector to present the results of the project ‘Strengthening the Role of the Private Sector in Providing Reproductive Health Services to Youth in Egypt’, that is implemented by the Population Council, in cooperation with the Port Fouad Association for Family and Child Care.
This project is implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development to meet the reproductive health and family planning needs of young factory workers in the investment zone in Port Said.
The project aims to support the national family planning program in Egypt, as overpopulation is considered a top concern for the Egyptian state.
According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) in 2018, the number of factory workers is around 2.6 million, most of whom are of childbearing age. The percentage of women in some sectors, such as the ready-made garment industry, is more than 50 percent.
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