Erbil, Iraq, 3 May 2016 – The United Nations Population Fund in cooperation with its national partner Al-Masala and funded by the United States Department of State (Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (BPRM)) and the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), established the first women centre in the Debaga camp in Makhmour district in Kurdistan Region, North of Iraq.

The Debaga women’s centre aims to serve the Iraqi women and girls internally displaced at the Debaga camp through providing a wide range of services including; Dignity kits distribution, Gender Based Violence prevention and response; awareness raising activities on GBV and reproductive health including recreational activities for women and adolescent girls. UNFPA also conducted a needs assessment exercise to identify the adolescent girls’ needs and design an awareness raising campaign and needs package tailored to serve the needs of adolescent girls in the Debega Camp and combat any form of Gender Based Violence they could be subjected to.

With the current ongoing armed clashes in the region resulting in the constant inflow of Internally Displaced Population to the Debaga camp, the IDP arrivals reached a total of around 3,800, including more than 1,500 women and girls till end of April 2016. The UNFPA supported Women’s Centre is becoming a core intervention in the Debaga IDP camp. The Masala Women’s Centre started operating on the 17th of April 2016 in the Debaga camp, and during the first three weeks of the centre operations, the centre provided various services to more than 160 women and young girl and handled the distribution of more than 1762 dignity kits to females at reproductive age especially among new arrivals. Among the services provided by the Al-Masala Women centre to the women and girls were the psychosocial support services provided to 46 women through professional counsellors. UNFPA teams also initiated targeted awareness raising visits to women and girls in the camp through conducting more than 180 tent-to-tent visit to raise the awareness on available GBV and sexual and reproductive health services as well as the different activities being implemented within the women centre. In addition, a tent was setup to expand the Women space area, which will soon start accommodating the adolescent girls’ activities.

UNFPA is currently planning to upscale its support to women and girls benefiting from Al-Masala Women Centre in the Debaga Camp through; increasing the numbers of Dignity kits to be distributed to women in the camp, initiation of recreational activities to respond to the specific needs of women and girls.

For more information, please contact:
Mohamed Megahed: megahed@unfpa.org