FIGO Committees – December 2022 update

For updates on committees that sit within FIGO's Division structure, visit the following pages:

Committee on Women Facing Crises: Human Rights, Refugees and Violence against Women

Committee Chair: Dr Rubina Sohail

This committee has been working on topics such as sexual and reproductive rights, climate change for women in crisis, women in conflict situations, gender-based violence, respectful care for women in all situations, and improving the quality of health and life of women.

Committee Chair Dr Rubina Sohail said,

We have been involved in publishing the paper on whether sexual and reproductive health and rights concepts are taught in medical schools, and a lot of advocacy work on the sensitisation needed for the health care providers and gynaecologists about women facing crises. We have been very forthcoming and efficient in various conferences and forums and we have raised the issue of gender-based violence and women facing crisis. We had two sessions in the South Asian Federation of OBGYN Conference. We had a session on the FOGSI-FIGO Emirates conference which was held in Dubai this year. Then we have been very active in the conference, which was held in Pakistan this year.

Committee on Women’s Cancer

Committee Chair: Dr Jonathan Berek

The FIGO Committee on Women’s Cancer has been making strides in cancer staging systems and contributing to workshops and meetings around the world.

Committee Chair Dr Jonathan Berek said,

This year, our committee has developed a revision of the FIGO endometrial cancer staging system. That updated staging system incorporates pathologic and molecular findings into the revised system, and I think should be a major advance in the area of staging for that group of diseases. Our committee helped to plan the very successful workshop on HPV and other vaccinations in women and in pregnancy. that was held in Prague in July 2022. We also created a programme in Gynecological Oncology and designated the speakers for the FIGO Regional Congress in Cartagena, Colombia.

Committee on Ethical Aspects of Human Reproduction and Women’s Health

Committee Chair: Dr Lourdes Capito 

The FIGO Committee on the Ethical Aspects of Human Reproduction has been working collaboratively with a number of other FIGO committees this year.

Committee Chair Dr Lourdes Capito said,

We continue to collaborate with the other committees to provide ethical insights about statements made by the other committees, as in the rape as a weapon of war statement. The committee also participated in the Vaccine Congress in Prague in July, where we delivered lectures during the session on women's rights, ethics relating to access to and knowledge of vaccine availability and use. It was also in July that we held our bioethics webinar, presenting the FIGO bioethics curriculum and these discussions using the Johnson's four box method of ethical analysis. It is the proposal of the committee that member countries shall adopt the FIGO bioethics curriculum into their training programmes.

Committee on Well Woman Health and Care

Committee Chair: Dr Hema Divakar

FIGO’s Committee on Well Woman Health and Care has worked to establish itself as a committee for collaboration within the organisation.

Committee Chair Dr Hema Divakar said,

This was a newly formed committee for 2022, so we thought it would probably take us longer to understand what this committee's expectations would be. But, I'm happy to say that the life course approach to wellness and the focus on the preventive care and the strategic four pillars of FIGO as in the education research implementation, the capacity building and the advocacy fell beautifully together across the lifespan. The kind of initiatives that we planned gave us an excellent opportunity to collaborate with almost every other committee, and we have really enjoyed putting our thoughts together that does what has been done in the initial phase where at the end of the two-year tenure, we do want to come out with concrete recommendations for preventive care in her journey to wellness right across her lifespan.

Committee on Menstrual Disorders and Related Health Impacts (MDRHI)

Committee Chair: Professor Hilary Critchley

The FIGO Committee on Menstrual Disorders and Related Health Impacts delivered the August 2022 global webinar, and published two important contributions to their specialty.

Committee Chair Professor Hilary Critchley said,

We have contributed to the field two important publications. This is a figure classification system for ovulatory disorders published simultaneously in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Fertility and Sterility and Human Reproduction. The second publication comes from members of our committee on caesarean scar defects and abnormal uterine bleeding, a systematic review and meta-analysis published in fertility and sterility. In November 2022, Ali Murji represented the committee at the regional FIGO Congress in Cartagena and delivered a keynote lecture on caesarean scar defect. This contribution was well-received and generated significant discussion about next steps for this topical area, especially the need for a multi-disciplinary approach.

Committee on Climate Change and Toxic Environmental Exposures

Committee Chair: Professor Ditas D. Decena

The Committee on Climate Change on Toxic Environmental Exposures has focused on collaboration with other committees and divisions within FIGO and will be expanding its work to the Asia region.

Committee Chair Dr Ditas Decena said,

We were able to collaborate with other divisions and committees of FIGO. There will be more collaboration. We've opened up the gates for our Asian region, so we will be participating in a regional meeting in Tokyo in October and we were given the opportunity to have a session on the environment because one of our committee members is now the head of the Working Group for the Environment in AOFOG. Aside from that, I'm glad that we were invited to join the Boring Too Soon group, so we're going to be part of the publication hopefully. We are really engrossed with keeping our mission vision for women's global health, our committee really plans to still spread advocacy on the environment.