“Reaching men is a winning strategy to encourage sexual responsibility, to foster men’s support of their partners’ contraceptive choices and to address the reproductive health care of couples,” said UNICEF Technical Expert Dr. Wame Baravilala in his presentation.
In the Pacific, there is a need to adopt new perspectives to overcome socio-cultural barriers, according to Baravilala. People need to recognize that men are more interested in family planning and reproductive health issues than previously assumed, and that we only need to have services directed specifically at them.
These days, Baravilala said, the question is no longer whether to involve men in issues pertaining to reproductive health, but rather how to involve them.
Women organizations all over the world have demanded that men should be more involved in reproductive health issues.
At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, representatives from more than 180 countries formally recognized the importance of men to women’s reproductive health and also recognized the importance of men’s own reproductive health.
The ICPD Program of Action urges all countries to provide men, as well as women, with reproductive health care that is “accessible, affordable, acceptable and convenient.”
Policies and programs should help men take more responsibility for their sexual behavior, for them to have access to reproductive health information and services, and have better communication with their partners.
These strategies, according to Baravilala, would help slow the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce unmet need for family planning, foster safe motherhood, practice responsible fatherhood and stop abuse of women.
