13 December 2021; Baghdad, Iraq - UNFPA, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs opened this month a one-stop assistance centre (OSAC) in Kirkuk with support from Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).

The Centre is integrated at a primary health care facility and provides comprehensive gender-based violence services including referrals for women and girls. UNFPA will continue building skills and expertise of service providers on integrated protection and gender-based violence services in Kirkuk using the established facility and connecting communities to OSAC.

“I cannot imagine what it is like for internally displaced persons, returnees, refugees and host communities to be going through these conditions away from their homes and families in the middle of the Pandemic. I hope that they get over all the difficulties they suffer and live a life they dream of, with this One-Stop Assistance Centre,” said KOICA Iraq County Director, Mr Cho Hyeong Lae.

In addition, two family planning centres of excellence were established in Erbil and Kirkuk by the Ministry of Health and Environment and the Ministry of Health, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and UNFPA with support from Sweden and the UK and will open three more in Duhok, Sulaymaniyah and Basra by the end of 2021.

The opening of such centres is one of the essential steps towards universal access to high-quality family planning services for families and women. The centres will serve as a capacity development platform for health providers in governorates, an innovative lab on family planning and a place where women can receive an integrated package of health services including high-quality family planning services.

In 2022, with support from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FDCO), UNFPA will open five more family planning centres of excellence in line with the National Birth Spacing and Family Planning Strategy. 

Commenting on the initiative, the British Ambassador to Iraq, HE Mark Bryson-Richardson, said: “The UK is excited to support the implementation of Iraq’s Family Planning Strategy and to see local communities, particularly women and girls, have access to quality health care provision.”

For her part, UNFPA Representative to Iraq, Dr Rita Columbia said: “All women and girls in Iraq have a right to be protected and have access to good quality health services. Relying on human rights and survivor-centred approaches, these centres will offer families, women and girls the information and services they need on health, including reproductive health and on how to gender-based violence prevention and response.”

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UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, delivers a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe, and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.

For more information or media inquiries, please contact Ms Salwa Moussa, Communications Specialist, smoussa@unfpa.org 00964 7809171035