Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Focus on reproductive rights

Thiruvananthapuram: India needs new strategies aimed at ensuring reproductive rights and making sexual and reproductive health programmes operational, according to Medical College Child Development Centre Director M.K.C. Nair.

In a paper presented at a workshop organised by the State Resource Centre (SRC) here recently, he stressed the need for an efficient health service delivery system to ensure reproductive choice as a basic human right without gender discrimination.

“The need for voluntary family planning is growing fast and it is estimated that it will grow by 40 per cent over the next 15 years. But family planning is losing ground as an international development priority. Funding is decreasing and the gap between the need and available resources is growing. The international community has recognised reproductive choice as a basic human right,” Dr. Nair said.

He said the National Rural Health Mission was a step in the right direction. “Reproductive health is a concern for both women and men. In many cultures, the discrimination against girls and women that begins at infancy can determine the trajectory of their lives. Issues of education and health care arise in childhood and adolescence. These continue to be issues in the reproductive years, along with family planning, sexually transmitted diseases and reproductive tract infections, inadequate nutrition and care in pregnancy and concerns about cervical and breast cancer,” he said.

The reproductive health of all, especially women, should be ensured throughout their lifetime, because of its importance to the quality of life at later stages, he added.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Kerala to press for more rail coaches
Kerala to press Centre for more rail coaches: Minister
Special counters to function
Provident Fund adalat
Water level down in reservoirs
Youth to receive special attention: Minister
Rain set to intensify
MLAs’ salary and pension bills passed
Headload workers Bill passed
Focus on reproductive rights
Community policing to ensure safe travel
No move to raise duration of load-shedding: Balan
Central scheme spending to go up
Uncertainty over counselling process
Essay contest
State to set up lab network to test construction materials
Two projects fail to take off
Bar Association to intensify stir
In Thiruvananthapuram Today

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu