
Danielle Toppin
RH Reality Check, Caribbean
Danielle Toppin writes from Jamaica. She has experience with gender and development, and will be covering reproductive health issues in the Caribbean and Latin America.
RH Reality Check, Caribbean
Danielle Toppin writes from Jamaica. She has experience with gender and development, and will be covering reproductive health issues in the Caribbean and Latin America.
While acknowledging the "cultural context" in which many students live, Jamaican Minister of Education Andrew Holness has refused to supply students with condoms in the schools.
In a series of diary entries for the Jamaica Gleaner, a young woman living with HIV relates the often neglected psychological effects of HIV infection and young motherhood.
Against a wider backdrop of sexual violence being committed against, and perpetrated by, children and adolescents, the sexualization of under-aged teenagers in Jamaica is extremely problematic.
In a cultural climate with too many examples of stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV, a proposed plan in Jamaica to protect the right of HIV-positive workers could symbolize a major step in the way the country treats this key issue.
A senior public health official in Jamaica recently called for decriminalization and taxation of commercial sex work. Other government officials decried the proposal, but have few effective suggestions of their own.
Because we live in societies that conceive of motherhood as "natural," policymakers haven't created adequate support systems for our diverse needs.
Gender activists in Jamaica have noted the persistence of strong links between community-based violence and rape.
The presence of violence - be it emotional, physical or sexual - diminishes the ability of healthy individuals to demand healthy sexual relationships, and by extension a healthy sense of self.
Illegal abortions are one of the top ten causes of maternal death in Jamaica. Safe, legal abortions are only accessible to those who can afford one. Existing abortion "common law" in Jamaica is ambiguous and differs than legislation on the books. Jamaica is in the midst of a heated abortion debate.
Although ideas regarding men's right to ownership over 'their' women in intimate relationships can be found across communities, the practice of cohabitation between under-aged females and older men is predominantly found in communities marked by poverty.
In a number of communities across the Caribbean, we have come to place an extremely high value on youth, moving away from traditions that elevated our elders to a place of respect, and in essence silencing their voices and increasing their vulnerability.
By emphasizing the social dynamics that often contribute to the transmission of HIV, policy planners and practitioners rightly see HIV as a social and development issue, not just as a health issue.
Recognizing the unique circumstances of children whose lives have been directly impacted by HIV, a number of worthwhile initiatives have been launched in Jamaica to address the issue.
A textbook that was allegedly proposed by the Jamaican Ministry of Education for inclusion in the home economics school curriculum made mention of same-sex unions and families, and a public outcry on the meaning of "Jamaican-ness" ensued.
No matter how we feel about adolescent sexuality, the fact remains: real girls and boys are choosing to, or being forced to, enter into sexual relationships every day. The stories are numerous. We need to listen.
Despite steps taken by many Caribbean nations towards ensuring women’s right to safely terminate their pregnancies, cultural debates which pit abortion against God omit two key factors from the debate: women’s right to choose, and the psychological, social and emotional impacts of their choices.
Art and advertising that play on concepts of sexual violence both feed and depend on a culture that normalizes sexual violence against women.
Will the newly-elected Jamaica Labor Party realize that gender equity and reproductive health care have significance for social and economic development?
Talking about men's sexual health needs means being open about masculinity.
States, not necessarily women, win when medical technology invades every aspect of pregnancy and childbirth.
Danielle Toppin explores an HIV prevention strategy proposed by Dr. Ray Noel, HIV Specialist for the Tobago Health Promotion Clinic, in an article in the Trinidadian newspaper The Sunday Guardian.
The National HIV/AIDS Commission of Barbados launched a prevention campaign consisting of public service announcements that draw on one of the Caribbean's core cultural elements: cricket.
Danielle Toppin travels to the British Virgin Islands to meet with local HIV/AIDS officials and begin to gauge what HIV/AIDS looks like there.
Danielle Toppin offers suggestions to improve a pilot survey in the Caribbean that fell short of reaching a wide number of people in groups vulnerable to HIV.
Jamaica has put measures in place to support the Convention on the Rights of the Child and protect children from sexual abuse, but cultural issues must be addressed in addition to legal reform.
In the area of reproductive and sexual health, accommodations must be made to take account of the impact of gender socialisation and the ways in which it shapes the sexual identities.
Children's participation in commercial sex work brings with it some particularly troublesome concerns in the areas of sexual and reproductive health. There is an urgent need for programmes and policies that meet the needs of this vulnerable group.
In the Caribbean, views are slowly changing from conservative attitudes to more positive understanding of healthy adolescent sexuality. Educating teenagers honestly will empower them to make wise decisions.
Editor's Note: Today we welcome Danielle Toppin, writing from Jamaica. She has experience with gender and development, and will be covering reproductive health issues in the Caribbean and Latin America.
On November 4, 2004, I discovered that I was pregnant. In that moment, my life began to change. The ways in which I saw myself; and in which society perceived me shifted. It was as though I had finally fulfilled my role as a woman. I had proven my worthiness.
In the Caribbean context, ideas of motherhood are inextricably linked with ideas of womanhood. In Barbados, meanings are attached to fertile and infertile female bodies; with value being attached to those women who reproduce, and withheld from those women who, either by choice or by nature, do not. Mothering has become synonymous with "becoming a woman", achieving an almost mythical status as the natural path that women's lives should take.