Andrew Saberton (UNFPA) on his recent mission to Chad and the situation for women and girls in the country - Press Conference

All right.
Good afternoon again, and we are now pleased to be joined by our guest, Andrew Saberton, the UNFPA Deputy Executive Director for Management, who recently visited Chad and can talk to you about that.
Mr.
Saberton welcome.
Thank you very much and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I just returned from a week long mission to Chad, where I traveled to Ubesi, Adri, in Kady province, and Iradimi refugee camp in Wadi Farah, in Eastern Chad, more than 1,000 kilometers from the capital in Jama.
I was there to assess the health and protection situation for women and girls, to hear directly from affected communities, and to better understand the responses being led by the government of Chad with support from UNFPA and humanitarian partners.
What I witnessed was both encouraging and deeply sobering, encouraging progress in advancing the health and rights of women and young people and sobering evidence of the immense pressures that conflict, displacement, and chronic underinvestment continue to place on already fragile systems.
Chad now hosts more than 1.3 million refugees and returnees, most of them women and children.
This is a country facing enormous challenges of its own, including widespread poverty, a fragile health system, limited infrastructure, and one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates, and yet it continues to keep its borders open to people fleeing violence.
That solidarity should not be taken for granted.
In Adré, on the Sudan border, I visited a UNFPA supported women's center where women and girls who fled Sudan spoke candidly about the dangers they face every day.
As firewood disappears around the camps, women are forced further out into isolated areas, exposing them to harassment, assault, and gender based violence.
Yet along this hardship, I also saw resilience.
The Women's Center is helping women rebuild their lives through psychosocial support, vocational training, and small income generating activities that restore both dignity and a degree of independence.
In Obesi in Eastern Chad, I visited a one stop center and a fistula treatment center supporting survivors of violence and women suffering from severe obstretic complications.
There I met a young fistula survivor whose story I won't forget.
Married at 15, she endured three days of obstructed labor with no medical assistance during her first pregnancy.
Her baby died, and shortly afterwards, her husband abandoned her.
She lived with fistula for nearly ten years before receiving treatment just a few months ago.
But now already she's under pressure to remarry, placing her at risk of reliving the same trauma again.
Further north in Waddifa where Iridima refugee camp is located, I saw the refugee responses under growing pressure.
I saw overstretched health services struggling to respond to the needs of both refugees and host communities.
In Waddifira province alone, local authorities report more than 333,000 refugees across approximately 81,000 households, with women and children accounting for more than 75% of the population.
Authorities told me that there are currently eight refugee camps in the province, while additional camps are being established near the border as refugees continue arriving through four main entry points from Sudan.
Women in the camp performed a striking theater sketch showing how the simple act of collecting firewood can become a moment of fear for so many women and girls.
It was a powerful illustration of how displacement can turn ordinary daily activities into moments of danger for women and girls.
At Iridimi refugee camp Health Center, midwife told me they are managing up to 300 births every month under extremely difficult conditions.
With minimal equipment, they have one delivery room, limited medicines and almost no specialist support.
Health workers repeatedly highlighted to us the severe shortages of anesthesia, limiting the ability to perform emergency cesarean sections and other lifesaving procedures.
While there is no ansiais, women may be forced to undergo C sections with no anesthesia, woman should have to endure that.
Meanwhile, medicines may be available in country, but unfortunately, they are not consistently reaching remote health centers where women urgently need them.
Indeed, the difference between life and death can come down to whether a facility has basic medicines, functioning referral systems, and enough trained staff on a given day.
At Irabiba District Hospital in the Waddifa province, I heard the story of Badri, a Sudanese refugee transferred from Iradiima camp after complications during pregnancy.
She eventually delivered a premature baby, boy, weighing just 1.1 kilos.
Neonatal care capacity remains extremely limited.
Some facilities have no incubators and no specialized neonatal care for premature babies.
As a father of a daughter, I found these stories particularly difficult to hear.
I would not wish these conditions on my own daughter or anyone else's daughter or on any woman or girl.
Everywhere we traveled, it was clear to see how recent funding cuts are constricting already overwhelming services.
Needs are growing faster than available resources, and more women and girls arrive every day.
More births are expected.
More survivors of violence require care and protection.
Health systems are stretched to their limits.
CHAD already has one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates at approximately 860 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
In humanitarian settings such as these, these risks multiply.
Globally, around two thirds of preventable maternal deaths occur in such humanitarian settings.
Our Chad country office is this year facing a 44% cut of funding compared with last year.
UNFPA is appealing for $18.7 million for its humanitarian aid program in 2026 to sustain life saving maternal health, reproductive health, and gender based violence services for refugees, returnees, and vulnerable host communities across Chad.
As of March 2026, only 2.5% of this appeal has been funded.
The government of Chad has shown extraordinary solidarity by keeping its borders open and sharing its already scarce resources with people fleeing violence, and that solidarity must now be matched by international support.
We need urgent sustained investment to keep maternal health and protection services running, to support frontline midwives and health workers and strengthen the local system serving both refugees and host communities.
For the women and girls I met in Eastern Chad, support is not abstract.
It means a safe birth, it means care after violence.
It means dignity, protection, and the chance to survive.
Thank you.
Thanks very much.
I'll now open the floor for questions.
Yes, E.
Thank you very much on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association for doing this briefing.
My name is Edith Leta from the Associated Press.
Two questions.
Has there been any accountability at all for the sexual violence and rape against some of these women fleeing from Sudan, certainly, but also in camps And secondly, is UNFPA or the Chadian government able to provide any forms of birth control to these displaced women and girls? Thank you.
Do you want me to respond to.
Thank you very much for the question.
Actually, in all of the one stop centers that I visited, I visited a different one every day.
We actually have a mixture of services that are actually provided on the spot.
You have the first a triage process when a victim is referred to the center or comes involuntary to the center.
Where they're assessed, do they need any medical attention for physical harm or whatever, and if they do, they can be referred to the medical services.
Many of these centers are next door or within the compound of medical facilities.
They also have a psychosocial assessment of, you know, to talk about, you know, and to, shall we say, get this out of the system to share their experience in here and sometimes actually talk to other survivors or can be, you know, during the process.
All of the centers, of all the centers I saw, they have access to the judiciary system.
There is actually a policeman or a lawyer literally there who can advise them of their rights on how to put a case together and how to actually take that to the courts.
Now, we see that is actually being used quite extensively, but the situation is two things coming as a bit of a blockage.
Many of these victims do not want to take it.
Berber.
They don't want to actually name the perpetrator, frankly, because there are no safe houses to go to.
Often these women are going to have to go back into that community if they don't have family elsewhere.
And that's always a problem that certainly acts as a blockage.
The second thing is, of course, once you go through the judicial system to try and you know, assuming you know your perpetrator, he can be found, it then becomes an expensive process, too.
And certainly, they often do not have the resources to there.
If I can just give you one fact in the actual Iridiea camp that I actually visited, there was, I think in 50-60 thousand people there.
Over 70% are women and girls.
There are only three policemen policing that camp.
Um, you know, it's better than some, but it's still way too below there.
So the UN system is taking action as much as possible to protect them.
We are creating the safe spaces, we are creating the community spaces.
We are creating the, you know, allowing the women's groups also to talk about survivors, to encourage more uptake of action, and also to spread the word for other survivors to come in.
Other parts of the UN are looking well, we need, for example, better lighting in the camps.
It's completely dark at night, you know, lighting would actually prevent some of this from happening.
So there is access to, you know, pathways to bring the perpetrator to justice.
Of course, it's far from perfect at the moment, but we believe every woman should have the right to actually take that action.
Yes, on the second part of your question about birth control, The contraceptive prevalence rate is actually very low in country.
It is there.
But actually, we're talking about a population which is a very low level of education and certainly regarding anything to do around sexual and reproductive health.
It's not talking about a norm, should I say in that society.
The prevalence rates for traditional methods is around 6%, just over 6%.
Even if you add the modern methods there, it's 8%.
In the camps I visited, most contraceptive male and female are available, and they are in the centers and can be used, and we're tracking that.
But again, it needs more this needs to be a much more holistic approach to actually educating the people to using this because ultimately, and another amazing statistic there is that approximately 50% of 16-year-old girls are either pregnant or already have their first child.
It has one of the highest fertility rates in the world, although it has come down about five years ago, is at six children per mother, has fallen to five something, but it's still very high.
These factors, compared with the actual very young age of union of that is leading and no contraception or limited contraception is leading to the high maternal mortality rate.
Actually, over 60% of the maternal deaths in one of the regions I visited were of what we would call youth or adolescents under 19.
So it's a very it's all traditional and and Patricia and modern methods of contraception were available in the camps I visited, but we've actually got to talk about the take up of this a little bit more and the education.
But actually, we are getting many more visitors to our health centers as well to talk about maternal health reproduction and to learn and have the women's groups attached to it to actually talk about things such as spacing and how you can actually protect their health.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yes.
Thank you, Mr.
Saversen for your briefing.
This is Ata Lee with Sphinx News TV.
You mentioned that part of your mission involved monitoring the progress of the Chadan government, as well as getting a better understanding of the specific challenges civilians have had to endure.
In your conversations with local and state authorities, if in fact it was a point of discussion, could you elaborate on the impact recent Bo Haram attacks have had on civilians and on the allocation of resources by state officials potentially away from the social sector and maybe more towards the military sector.
Thank you.
Okay.
Essentially, I had meetings with the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Women and Childhood, and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as the President of of the Senate.
And there are a few things to reflect on the context.
Firstly, As I mentioned in my opening remarks, I have to, in today's day and age, applaud the fact that the Chadian government has allowed, you know, it's 1.3 million refugees.
It's actually over 2 million returnees and refugees from around various parts of the country because it's not just from Sudan.
The 1.3 I mentioned was coming from the Sudan conflict.
But Chad has control of its borders, and that's very much a bonus in that region because whether it's in the East and the Chad Lake Basin or the West in Sudan, the north with Libya or, you know, in the Central African Republic on the southern side, there is conflict, okay? Unfortunately, it's, you know, a matter of economics that that costs comes at a price.
It needs a lot of resources to do it.
But it is one of the few kind of islands in that region of the Sahel and South Africa where they do control their borders.
Now, we did talk to, I did talk to both government and local governors.
One is that, um, One element which is really surprised.
Everything we see and we are doing there is in partnership, okay.
And importantly about that and very importantly because of UNFPA we're a development agency as well as a humanitarian.
What we're doing is available and an asset to the Chadian people, not just for refugees.
We talked about the woman's center, local women go there as well.
When I talk about the one stop centers, it's not just for refugees.
The fistula is the same.
So we're actually there.
That actually helps bring any perceived conflict down with the local population.
It also means that actually we're building up the capacity of the local health services and other infrastructure.
I did talk very candidly, particularly with the Minister of Finance, that more money does need to be put on the table to cure these problems.
Yeah, again, it's priorities.
It's a similar thing around the world we go, but you can see these are very certainly particularly with UN FPA mandate, these are very vicious circle, no contraception, maternal mortality, gender based violence.
They're all in some way related.
One thing we are actually pushing the Chadian government for to actually inform its economic and social development about is to actually conduct a census.
It hasn't had a census for 2009.
The plans are in way to actually complete that census by the end of this year.
They are putting money into that census together with a whole basket of donors to actually do that, so it's likely to happen.
Then that certainly inform their policies and priorities of where the country is.
But we also talked about candidly that particularly during the cuts that the UN and the aid environment is having, the government must continue to up its game in that partnership.
I talk candidly about the fact that they need to take on the wages of their midwives.
Their midwife rate is about half what it should be in terms of ratios to the population.
And previously, a lot of that was funded from US money, which was completely cut.
UNFPA has stepped in with surge support, but we can't continue to do that.
So we're saying, this is an actual.
In the one stop center I visited, it was to hand it over to the government.
And I actually made commitments in sorry, statements in that handover ceremony that we will come back and we want to make sure that equipment is used, used properly, and is available to things, and it is not, you know, it is actually money well spent because my mission was twofold.
It was to look not just to raise the attention of the problems in Chad, but actually to come back and tell donors, actually, I've seen your money is well spent.
I've seen the dollars are going and I've seen partnership.
This isn't just a donor sorry, someone just accepting money.
They're actually putting money in.
It's not enough yet, it's not much, but they are willing to do that.
Midwives was an example, the takeover of facilities and a fantastic partnership I see in day one in the Capitol.
I visited the mother and child hospital And we've had a long partnership with them and provided a lot of equipment over the years, including simulation equipment for, you know, the obstetric surgeons to actually train on, as well as the midwives.
Before we started this program in 2015, there were 23 obstetricians in that country, a huge country, just 23.
And they were all trained, received their training outside of Chad Over the last ten years, we've added 63 to that number, and they're all trained in CAD, much cheaper.
But again, that was a partnership that's linked to their teaching hospital.
But again, I talked about it with the government.
One of the things they need to do is to make sure those specialists get deployed in the areas of the most need.
They don't all stay in the capital.
I spoke with the health minister on this about the way of incentivizing that they spend some time in the hard spots of the country.
So that was, you know, just one example of where we are.
We're also paying for the training of some of the GBV specialists into legal, covering their to have legal training as well so that they can actually talk and be fully aware of the pathways and attention that needs to be given to matters.
So I hope in some way that answers your question.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Yes, please.
Thank you, this is to with China entered vision.
So as in China and many other countries had often called for more support to the African countries.
So based on what you saw in chart, where is international support needed most, especially for women and children.
Okay.
As I already mentioned in some of my notes, the funding situation is dire in Chad.
Let's be honest, one of the reasons I'm here is to raise the profile of Chad because let's face it, and you as correspondents know at this moment there is so many crisis in this world.
There are so many dire humanitarian contexts that need attention.
But unfortunately, the attention tends to be limited to just a few and countries like Chad just shall we say, disappear off the radar.
So this is an attempt to actually say, Well, there are big crises that are not getting attention, and usually attention means dollars as well.
They're not getting that.
So I'm trying to raise the profile of that, trying to raise the profile of the partnership.
It's well underfunded.
As I say, the humanitarian appeal we launched at the beginning of this year required 18.7 million only 2.5% funded at this moment in time.
UNFPA can put money in of its own resources as well.
But again, as I mentioned, it's 44% cut since last year, primarily the funding cuts from the US, which accounted for about 25% of that.
It's the answer.
It's probably an answer you're fed up with hearing, but it's about prioritization, prioritization, prioritization.
And it's prioritization with the government.
We need to work with this.
We need to make sure that when we're providing you supplies, you have put resources into the logistic system to get them to the last mile beneficiary.
They don't sit in a government warehouse.
When we provide you with equipment, you make sure you have your specialists able to use the equipment in these centers.
So we're trying to do that needs assessment of what they need most in the country, but all the work UNFPA, all of the four outcomes of UNFPA are at a crisis, three are at a crisis point, and one is severely needed.
So our three outcomes in our strategic plan last year are to accelerate the end of preventable maternal deaths.
And I said they've got 860 200,000.
That's one of the maternal deaths to 100,000 that's one of the highest in the world.
To end the need for contraceptives.
You know, you know, to make them available so there's no a gap between need and what.
Prevalence rate and it's not just providing contraceptives, which we do, but we need to do more of, but it's actually educating the people on how to use them, male and female.
The third area we work on is ending violence against women in all its forms, be it gender based violence or FGM.
That is a very difficult one to do.
Of course, the physical attacks and that we will treat, as I mentioned in the one stop centers and we will get action, but we also have to deal with the norms.
We have to get the government and the people to change their way of thinking about what is acceptable or not.
It's about educating men and boys just as much as it is about educating women and girls.
We're doing all of those three things which are what we used to call our three zeros, but are now three outcomes of our strategic plan.
The fourth outcome we have in our strategic plan again is very is demographic resilience, and that's centered around the census, which we are actually pushing for the first one for over 20 years or sorry, 17 years in Chad, so that they know who their population is, where it is, what its buildup is, and to put together with the limited money, the priority policies to actually achieve the best outcome.
But it's partnership, partnership, partnership, and the bottom line is there is certainly the old economic problem of infinite needs but finite resources, so And we have a question online from Abdul Hamid.
Thank you, Mr.
Sara.
My name is Abdel Hamid.
I am from the Arabic Daily.
Last time, sir, you spoke to us, you just came from Gaza.
I know this subject today is chad, but if I may ask you and it's up to you to answer or to decline if you have any update about the situation of women in Gaza in the light of the latest development.
Thank you, sir.
I can't say I have any very specific updates since my visit.
I know whilst the border was open, we were able to get UNFPA was able to get many of its supplies across the border.
You remember when we spoke, I think we had about 200 trucks stuck at the border with everything from menstrual kits to health kits, et cetera.
The vast majority of those went in before the border came in.
Our partners are working.
But I would actually if you don't mind, I'll just turn it around one little bit as to actually something I said in that press conference, if you remember, I was actually two days after the ceasefire, as we would call it, I was in there.
And actually, one thing I asked was that no one should actually think that ceasefire stop thinking about Gaza now.
You know, it's not a case of cease fire and, okay, we forget a problem.
It's actually just the start of the situation.
And that's my worry is maybe the attention has been a little bit lost on Gaza since the cease fire, but the suffering and the difficulty of particularly you know, the population, but particularly women and girls continues.
And UN FPA will stay and deliver and do the best it can in the situation.
But I can't give you any specific statistics or facts at this moment in time, but we are still there.
We are still working in what is a very desperate situation.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Okay.
Great.
And with that, I'd like once more to thank our guest, Andrew Saberton, the Deputy Executive Director for Management of the UN Population Month.
Thanks very much for your briefing.
Thank you.
And have a great afternoon, everyone.