Study Overview

The majority of the available SRHR interventions for key populations are only focused on STIs including HIV/AIDS ignoring other SRHR needs of these populations. On top of that, due to several barriers like long waiting hours, unknown or inconvenient location of healthcare facilities, lack of privacy and confidentiality at available healthcare settings, judgmental and discriminatory attitudes from healthcare providers, poor communication between service providers, stigma, shame, or fear of exposure to the public as a sex worker, restrictions from the community leaders or gatekeepers, lack of available medicines and proper referral systems etc. service utilization by these marginalized population is also hindered. Consequently, being deprived of comprehensive and dedicated SRHR services these groups of the population face serious complications like unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, psychosexual problems etc. To address this crucial issue and as a part of our ethical obligation of conducting research with these vulnerable populations, an SRHR service component package has been initiated. These services are being delivered by the Project Research Physicians (PRPs) and Counselling Officers (COs) for free of cost. The aim of the initiative is to enable these impoverished people to improve their SRH as well as to enhance their uptake of SRH services at appropriate healthcare facilities. We are providing general health and STI treatment, SRH counselling, mental health counselling, psychosexual counselling and counselling to prevent and fight against gender-based violence (GBV). While providing services we are not counting individuals rather we are counting the number of services that is provided to one recipient. Thus, we are calculating the number of episodes of services.