We organized a mobile camp to help more girls in Nepal

From the Pariwartan social center in Kathmandu, Nepal, we have organized a two-day mobile counseling camp with the aim of reaching new women and girls who may need our services.

In this camp, women working in prostitution in the Thamel neighborhood can obtain main services, such as legal, psychosocial and reproductive health advice, in the same place and on the same day. This makes it easier for many more girls to come, since in most cases they cannot live freely. However, with this type of event, the pimps themselves are the ones sending the girls to receive free medical treatment.

A form of identifying needs

The mobile camp has helped us identify women and girls who are in high-risk areas and thus provide them with support. During these sessions, apart from the treatment and medical check-up, it is a good time to talk to the girls and find out more about their situation. Once we can identify their problems, it will be easier to follow up and enroll them in other services for their empowerment.

During these two days, 65 women and girls visited the camp and enrolled in psychosocial, reproductive health and legal counseling. After studying the cases individually, Mumbai Smiles plans to provide support to the girls according to their needs. In fact, of all the women who came, 6 of them had legal problems, so they received counseling and we are going to follow up.

We also provide emotional support, as well as legal advice, to women victims of domestic violence. In the counseling session, they shared that they had problems related to marital life, relationships, and lack of family support. Many of these women have many psychosocial problems, such as dietary imbalances, sleep disturbances, low self-confidence, lack of social support, stress, alcohol and tobacco addiction, fear, etc.

The sexual health, the major problem

Of all the women who attended the camp, 40 of them had serious reproductive health problems. We invited all of them to a reproductive health test and VIA (a type of cervical cancer). Many had infection in the vagina, swelling of the uterus, white water discharge and other sexually transmitted diseases.

During the test there was an awareness session also conducted by the Health Assistant on how to be safe from these types of problems. After finishing the camp, from Mumbai Smiles together with the local organization Chhori we realized that we needed to work more on the health of these girls, since due to their work and lack of knowledge, many of them have serious sexual and reproductive health problems.