Wednesday marked the last day of Eswatini National Dialogue on SRHR-HIV Knows No Borders.

The National dialogue meeting, convened by Save the Children and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in coordination with the Ministry of Health took place at the Bethel Court Vineyard Hotel at Ezulwini on September 4 – 5 respectively.

The dialogue provided the opportunity for multiply country stakeholders in the likes of different government ministries (Ministry of Education and Training, Deputy Prime Minister’s office and the Youth and Sports), Coordinating bodies in the likes of CANGO, NERCHA, and SNAP and the UN family to name a few, to discuss SRHR issues in Eswatini.

It offered a platform for stakeholders to, engage on SRHR and HIV issues among migrants, sex workers and adolescents and young people as well as host communities along major migration routes and cross-border areas within the kingdom of Eswatini.

Furthermore, the dialogue aimed at creating awareness on migration and SRHR issues especially amongst policy makers as well as enable country delegates to review progress on implementation of the Eswatini strategy regarding SRHR and HIV concerns for the target populations at country level.

It was also aimed at identifying key priority intervention areas for advocacy to improve service delivery of SRHR-HIV services, identifying SRHR issues that need to be escalated to SADC regional level for harmonization of the SRHR HIV management approaches across the region and establishing collaborations amongst partners implementing SRHR-HIV on the ground.

Save the Children SRHR HIV Knows No Borders program lead Sifiso Mdluli said the SRHR-HIV-KNB program is implemented in six different countries including Lesotho, the Kingdom of Eswatini, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa with Support from the Netherlands Government.

“The SRHR-KNB project aims at improving access to SRHR and HIV services and information for migrants and migration affected communities along cross-border and migration corridors in the region.

It seeks to improve Sexual Reproductive Health and HIV related related outcomes amongst migrants, as well as non-migrants, adolescents, young people, sex workers, and others living in migration affected communities.”

Mdluli continued, “The Health-related outcomes in the affected communities are improved through promotion of positive healthy sexual relationships which contributes in the reduction of new HIV infections and improving SRHR indicators by reducing prevalence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), teenage pregnancy, maternal mortality rate, unmet needs for family planning , increasing the use of modern contraception  and greater freedom of choice about sexuality as it responds to critical gaps and weaknesses in the SRHR response at regional and country level by strengthening community-based response to HIV and SRHR in the targeted migration affected communities.