UNFPA Humanitarian Programme

Approximately 75 per cent of the refugees in Turkey are estimated to be women and children under 18 years old. A quarter of refugees are women of reproductive age. Four percent of the population are pregnant and delivering refugee women with newborns every year. 15 percent of pregnancies are expected to face high-risks and need tertiary care – Cesarian section, operations/ blood transfusion, intensive care. 

UNFPA is one of the major United Nations humanitarian response organizations with a mandate to meet the reproductive and maternal health needs of persons in emergency situations, especially ensuring that women can deliver safely in often difficult conditions; to combat gender-based violence (GBV) and to mitigate its consequences; and to meet the needs of young people as they mature and move into adulthood.

For the past five years, UNFPA has scaled up its response to meet the enormous and ever growing needs of what is the biggest humanitarian crisis today. UNFPA country office in Turkey has been responding to the crisis in country (within the framework of the UN Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan-3RP and Regional Refugees and Migrants Response Plan - RMRP) and Northern Syria (in line with Syria and neighboring countries which are part of humanitarian efforts) working closely with affected populations, community based organisations, local and international NGOs, governments and UN agencies to ensure that the reproductive health needs are met and systems are in place to respond and prevent GBV. As per its mandate, all UNFPA is co-leading the GBV coordination mechanisms, as working closely with the health sector to ensure coordination around sexual and reproductive health.