From Manila to Bangkok: Collective action

BANGKOK– The 2nd Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health (APCRSH) kicked off here yesterday with resource persons talking about disconcerting realities, such as the US foreign policy’s being an "affront to women’s rights and reproductive rights", the high cost of reproductive health services, global politics and HIV/AIDS, and how increasing fundamentalism impacts on sexual and reproductive rights.

Nearly a thousand people from 30 countries have converged here to take up where the 1st Asia Pacific Conference left off in Manila two years ago. There are more issues this time that require actions that would influence policymakers, civil society, activists, governments, and private entities if the reproductive and sexual health of people in the region are to be improved. Which is why the theme of the forum is, "Moving Into Action: Realizing Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights in the Asia Pacific Region".

Nanchy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights the US spoke about how bad things had become for advocates in America under President Bush. Funding for family planning clinics that offer abortion services has been stopped. This has had a bad impact on the reproductive needs of people. The $30-million that he withheld from United Nations Children’s Fund could have been enough, said Ms. Northup, to prevent two million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 induced abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths, 60,000 cases of serious maternal illness, and 77,000 infant deaths.

The pro-abortion advocates’ dismay over the withdrawal of funds is not as keenly felt in the Philippines, where abortion is not allowed by law. What is disconcerting for family planning organizations is the withdrawal of artificial contraceptives by USAID, the withdrawal to be completed in a couple of years. In the long run, that might be good for us Filipinos who could find ways and means to run our family planning clinics — creatively, a word in currency at the conference – without depending on foreign funds.

But the effect of the Bush prohibition is described by Ms. Northup as resulting in a "global gag". The American public, she told this columnist, does not really know what’s going on, what the Bush action is doing in countries that need family planning services.

The "global gag" was also used by the speaker on the HIV/AIDS Epidemic, Prof. Denis Altman of Australia who is president of AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific. People don’t want to talk about AIDS resulting from male contact with another male. And yet, he said, the threat of the epidemic is even more threatening than terrorism.

He said 14,000 new HIV infections occurred everyday in 2002, 95 percent of them in developing countries, and 2,000 are in children under age 15. About 12,000 infected persons are from ages 15 and 49, and about 50 percent of them are women of the ages 15 to 24.

He said in response to a comment from the audience, that a big threat to the prevention of the HIV/AIDS scourge is that people remain silent instead of confronting churches (that do not allow the use of condoms, for example). "Too often we’re scared to confront churches. I don’t think I’d like to honor the churches that cause the deaths of people. The epidemic is too serious. Respect for religion or culture is not enough to keep us silent."

The two other speakers at yesterday’s opening program spoke about the need to find health insurance systems that will benefit especially poor women (TK Sundari Ravindran of India), and of the frightening consequences of the burning of a train that killed more than 50 Hindus. This incident resulted in a bloody conflict with Muslims, the burning of Muslim villages , killing of children, raping of women and slashing of pregnant women’s stomachs, and consequently in sexual and reproductive health problems.

Talking about creativity in promoting family planning, Sen. Mechai Viravaidya, just like our senator, Juan Flavier, brought the house down with his recounting of the Thai government’s experience in pulling down the country’s birth rate from 3.3 some 30 years ago to today’s 0.8. Before, the average family size was seven children; today, it is 1.6. In obvious reference to the "divine" intervention that takes place in the Philippines, he said, "We are not depending on God because we are depending on ourselves."

The methods to make Thais family-planning conscious have been numerous and unorthodox. Medical personnel, midwives, grassroots people, policemen, sari-sari stores, barber shops, dressmakers, taxi drivers, and gas stations, willingly agreed to sell condoms and contraceptive pills. Free vasectomy vans were in operation on Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, July 4th celebrations. In HIV-AIDS preventive activities, movie stars, policemen, religious leaders, the media were used, and "Walk for Condom" and Capt. Condom and Miss Condom contests were held. These activities would be gunned down by Pro-Lifers in the Philippines.

Sen.Malinee Sukavejworakit, M.D. chair of the APCRSH international steering committee, said at the forum opening that she had spent many years as a doctor in a provincial hospital, "and that experience brought me face-to-face with the sufferings of men and women, even children, whose choices for health care were constrained by poverty, cultural expectations, structural barriers or lack of information. Since then, I have realized that health problems can never be fully solved by medical intervention alone since they occur within an economic, political, cultural, and social background. I believe that realizing reproductive and sexual health for our people would entail the support of many different sectors because control over men’s and women’s bodies is contested both in the private and public domains, as well as in the physical and spiritual realms."

A word on the organizers of the 1st conference in Manila. Discussions on having a forum touching on reproductive and sexual needs in the Asia Pacific region actually began in the Hague, and the fruition of those dreams was made possible by the Philippine NGO Council on Population, Health, and Welfare (PNGOC), under the direction of the PNGOC chair, Undersecretary Ben de Leon, Dr. Eden Divinagracia (PNGOC executive director),who are members of the Bangkok conference steering committee, and Romy Arca Jr., who currently serves as coordinator of the Bangkok conference.

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