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.
I remember being with several colleagues in 2002 preparing for a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives. About ten minutes before the hearing was supposed to start, a knock at the door of a small office in which we had huddled brought an interim report from Mathematica Policy Research. Mathematica had been funded by the federal government to conduct an entirely voluntary evaluation of programs receiving funding under Title V. The hearing was centered on the reauthorization of the Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage program which delivers $50 million in federal funds each year to states. Of course, we thought the timing was highly suspect to say the least, but this interim report (PDF) said nothing of import. It reported out on a great deal of process but included no data whatsoever on behavioral impacts.
The release of the 10-year evaluation of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs on Friday (if you can call the posting of the report on an obscure government website on a Friday afternoon a "release"), puts a big, bright spotlight on Democrats in Congress, particularly the appropriators.
Congress asked for this evaluation back in 1997. Do these programs work to protect young people? Ten years and over $1.5 billion dollars later, they got their answer. No, they don't. Period.
Now, you might be wondering why Congress went ahead and spent all that money over all those years with no evidence of effectiveness? You might wonder why Congress didn't halt these programs after the Institute of Medicine, the nation's leading authority on public health, called for their elimination back in 2000 or when the Society of Adolescent Medicine reported that the efficacy of abstinence-only programs was "near zero."
After significant outrage by women civil servants in India, the Indian government says it will review new appraisal forms requiring female civil servants to offer information about their menstrual cycles.
Last week, the BBC reported that the health ministry of the Indian Government sought information about the details of female employees' menstrual cycles and when they last sought maternity leave. The offending questions are after the jump.
“After 10 years and $1.5 billion in public funds these failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs will go down as an ideological boondoggle of historic proportions,” said James Waggoner, President of Advocates for Youth.
Naina Dhingra is the Director of International Policy at Advocates for Youth and serves on the Developed Country NGO Board Delegation of the Global Fund.
The annual spring meetings of the World Bank will be held this weekend in Washington, D.C. amidst turmoil and controversy surrounding its head, Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz, better known for his role as a former Bush official central to the planning of the Iraq war, came under fire yesterday for impropriety surrounding the promotion and pay raise of his girlfriend, Shaha Riza. Wolfowitz, who has been outspoken on the need to get rid of corruption in development during his tenure at the World Bank, made the hourly CNN newsfeed for helping Riza secure a high paying special assignment to the State Department when he joined the Bank.
As if he didn't have enough problems, the Financial Times reported last night that reproductive health policies have been under attack under Wolfowitz due to the appointment of Juan José Daboub to managing director. Daboub is a former member of the ruling conservative party of Ecuador. The FT reports that Daboub is "attempting to radically alter a long-standing health strategy at the World Bank" and that "there was a widespread perception within the bank that the emphasis on contraception in preventing disease was being altered following the appointment [of Daboub]."
If humor has healing powers, The Onion is a great doctor. (For those of you unfamiliar with The Onion: Do you live in a cave? er... What I meant to say is ... Please understand that the following video is a joke. Satire. Not to be taken seriously.) I hope this makes you laugh and brightens your Friday.
Editor's Note: Today we welcome Pamela Pizarro, writing from Canada. She has experience with youth coalitions and will be writing about the sexual and reproductive health and rights of youth in Canada.
Youth are curious; it is one of our fundamental traits as young people. It helps us to explore and learn about the world around us. Curiosity about sex and sexuality is something that every young person goes through. We begin by exploring our own bodies, and then move on to exploring the bodies of others. It is a natural progression that each individual goes through, and when we encounter questions about our sexuality we look to our peers, educational institutions and our parents for answers.
Just when you thought the information surfacing about "Dr." Eric Keroack's professional practice and extracurricular pseudo-medical activities couldn't get any weirder ... it just got weirder. Back in November, Keroack was appointed by Bush to head the Title X Federal Family Planning Program, amidst widespread outrage over the fact that he runs a chain of highly unethical crisis pregnancy centers, believes contraception is demeaning to women, and has used junk science to argue that premarital sex undermines women's biological capacity to fall in love. After just five months on the job, on March 29 Keroack abruptly resigned as Head-Anti-Family-Planning-Zealot in charge of meeting low-income women's family planning needs, amidst investigations into the legitimacy of his professional practice. This week, the Boston Globe took a closer look at the Mass. board of medicine's accusations, and their report indicates a disturbing series of ethical lapses that should come as no surprise to those who have been following the coverage of Keroack to date.
Editor's note: Today we welcome Deepali Gaur Singh, writing from India. She has experience in childcare, health, and education; she will be covering reproductive health issues on the continent of Asia.
At a time when even children from rural marginal families in one part of India—the southern state of Karnataka—are engaging in information dissemination on HIV with a specific focus on stigma and discrimination, adult policy-makers in five states of the country have rejected the new syllabus introduced by the national government's Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) featuring sex education as a dedicated subject for middle school students. Just as the central government gets credit for taking one of the most proactive steps with regard to both education and children in recent times (by directing all states to include the subject in their curriculum), and with the training of teachers also underway, it's ironic that the resistance to the move has come from just about every quarter possible.
