Report
As we mark 12 years of the Syrian conflict, a new report documents how targeted violence against healthcare personnel and infrastructure has impeded vital sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care, resulting in far-reaching tolls on the health and wellbeing of women, girls, and healthcare professionals.
The devastating earthquake that struck southern Türkyie and northern Syria in February 2023 has compounded already precarious access to healthcare in the region, contributing to the collapse of the fragile healthcare system in northwest Syria.
“She Pays the Highest Price: The Toll of Conflict on Sexual and Reproductive Health in Northwest Syria,” co-published today by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Syria Relief & Development (SRD) and the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), details how ongoing conflict and targeted attacks on hospitals and healthcare professionals have fueled a crisis in northwest Syria, limiting the availability and access to life-saving SRH services.
Informed by interviews with over 260 healthcare workers and patients in northwest Syria conducted in 2022, the study shines a light on the barriers women and girls faced, even before the earthquake, in accessing SRH services such as maternal and newborn healthcare, family planning, gender-based violence services, post-abortion care, and sexually transmitted infection treatment and care.
