Ms Julia Matthews is a Senior Coordinator of Reproductive Health Project in Women’s Commission for Refugees and Children. She is currently working on the project of HIV / AIDS prevention and Control.

AWN recently conducted an interview with her about the current training on HIV / AIDS Prevention and Control that was implemented in May, 2005, Peshawar by AWN.

Giving a brief introduction about Women’s Commission she said; The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children founded in 1989 is an independent affiliate of the International Rescue Committee. The Commission works for protection of refugee and displaced women, children and adolescents, encourage their participation ensures their access to education, health services and livelihood opportunities

She said that our 4th training of HIV / AIDS Prevention and Control was conducted in June, 2004 in Islamabad.

What was the purpose and objective of the Training?

A 10 days (5+5) training workshop on HIV/AIDS Prevention & Control was conducted by AWN with support of Women Commission from 18 – 28 May, 2005 at Revoli Guest House Peshawar. This training was conducted in two phases, In the first five days of the training, 22 participations were benefited from the training that included participants from different NGOs and Health section.

AWN with financial collaboration of WomenKind conducted a three days workshop on “Legal rights for women in Jail”. This workshop was conducted for awareness of women’s rights, child rights, human rights in a civil society and women’s rights in Islam. The target group of the workshop was the women that are in Jail.

PESHAWAR, April 5:
The public hospitals in the provincial metropolis not only do not have adequate medical facilities for HIV positive patients but their staff maltreat such patients.

A 20-year-old Afghan HIV patient along with her two HIV positive young daughters told Dawn that the medical staff at the Lady reading Hospital, Peshawar, didn’t provide them proper medical care when one of her daughters was suffering from severe diarrhoea and taken to the hospital.