Assessment of Reproductive Health for IDPs
Angola, February 15-28, 2001
Viana, Luanda
Viana camp is on the outskirts of the capital city
Luanda. The IDPs living in this camp come from Malanje, Bie, Moxico
and Huambo provinces and there are also refugees from the DRC.
Many traveled by foot and others by road. IDPs from Moxico established
the camp in 1992 and IDPs from the other provinces followed. The
camp is divided by province. The assessment team met with the
chief of the Malanje quarter of the camp who walked to the camp
from Malanje in 1999. There is one health post in this camp run
by an Italian NGO named COSV. The nearest health center is three
kilometers from the camp in Viana town and the nearest hospital
is 30 kilometers away in Luanda. The camp health post is only
open during the day Monday through Friday so there are no health
services available in the camp when the post is closed. The women
we spoke with said they are treated well at the health post but
at the hospital, if they are identified as IDPs, the services
they receive are worse. These women said that the health services
they receive here are still better than those they received in
their home province Malanje.
Safe Motherhood
Most women deliver in the camp with a TBA. The main problems for
pregnant women are malaria, spontaneous abortions and premature
births. There is an ambulance available during the week at the camp
health post but when the ambulance is not there they must pay for
transport or find a ride some other way.
Family Planning
The assessment team was told that women have 8-10 children on average.
Most people see having many children as a blessing, but they still
want to be able to space their children and lack of resources can
be a reason for families to want to limit the number of children
they have. The Malanje chief said that men do not concern themselves
with family planning because they think this is a women's issue.
Depo Provera is the preferred method of contraceptive here, as in
every other province we visited. Women told us that they are expected
to pay for contraceptives, likely due to corruption of the health
workers who are either not getting paid at all or are paid very
little.
STDs/HIV/AIDS
There have been
several HIV workshops in this camp so knowledge about HIV is fairly
good. However, we were told that men do not like to use condoms
and often refuse to do so.
Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
The IDPs we spoke with told us that SGBV is not a problem in this camp. It was difficult during our short visit to determine if this is true or if perhaps people were just uncomfortable discussing this issue with us.
