Shariq Farooqi
Shariq Farooqi is a research intern for the Wilson Center's Maternal Health Initiative (MHI). They are a senior undergraduate student at the George Washington University studying International Affairs, Public Health, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. They are incredibly passionate about health equity on a community level, especially on how structural determinants of health affect healthcare delivery.
During their time in DC, they have interned for the American Pakistan Foundation, the Atlantic Council South Asia Center, and Aridai. Their academic and personal journey has shaped his desire for healthcare justice and accessibility in marginalized communities. They hope to work at the intersections of advocacy and direct action with neglected communities in the future.
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Through the COVID-19 Lens: Essential Services Needed to Prevent Unintended Pregnancies
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“The current pandemic is straining human resources, disrupting supply chains and service delivery, and negatively impacting service seeking among women and girls in countries across the globe,” said Sarah Barnes, Project Director of the Wilson Center’s Maternal Health Initiative. She spoke at a recent event, co-hosted by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), on unintended pregnancies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The increasing rates of unintended pregnancies during the pandemic have exacerbated the vulnerabilities of many women, said Anneka Knutsson, Chief of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Branch at UNFPA.
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16DaysCampaign Calls to End Femicide: Research Shows Women in Perinatal Period at Risk
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“Femicide is an important, but often unreported, cause of maternal mortality. This research documents the immediate need for universal abuse assessment of all pregnant women,” write the authors of the self-declared first study to report a definite link between abuse during pregnancy and attempted/completed femicide—the gender related killing of women. This study was published in 2002.
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Seeing and Hearing Mothers: Uncovering Poor Perinatal Mental Health
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Globally, 15 to 20 percent of women experience a perinatal mental health condition, said Sarah Barnes, Project Director of the Maternal Health Initiative at a recent event, held in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), on mental health support for mothers in the perinatal period. Women are more likely to develop anxiety or depression in the year after giving birth than in any other time in their lives, with suicide and overdose the leading causes of death in the first year postpartum. “And yet, the prevention, early recognition, and treatment of perinatal mental health conditions is a challenge for many, if not most, healthcare systems across the world,” said Barnes.
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Localized Responses to Gender-Based Violence Leave Women-led Organizations Behind
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One in five women who is forcibly displaced will experience sexual violence, said Charlotte Slente, Danish Refugee Council Secretary-General at a roundtable on the prevention of gender-based violence in humanitarian crises during the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The high-level roundtable was hosted by the Government of Denmark in partnership with several other international bilateral agencies, as well as women-led organizations.*
