Profamilia has announced the start of a new campaign “Know, act and demand” to promote sexual and reproductive rights in the Dominican Republic, as reported in acento.com.do
Susi Pola, speaking for Profamilia, said that despite a series of commitments towards public policies taken on by the Dominican government, there has been little progress in sexual and reproductive rights for Dominicans.
“Governments come and governments go, governments under political parties of all colors (…) that promise women they will change laws, design policies, allocate resources, forgetting and mocking the women who with their votes and enthusiasm helped them reach power,” said Magaly Caram, executive director of Profamilia.
The campaign will be carried out by Profamilia together with the INTEC University Gender Studies Center, the Dominican Obstetrics and Gynecology Association and the Santiago Women’s Support Group (Nucleo de Apoyo de la Mujer).
Fausto Rosario, president of the board of Profamilia says the campaign will touch on abortion and sexual harassment. He said it was a good time for the Ministry of Education to review public policies and programs aimed at reducing teenage pregnancy. He pointed out that the Dominican Republic is one of the five countries in Latin America with highest teenage pregnancy rate at 92 per 1,000, and a high maternal mortality rate of 159 of 100,000 live births.
He called for comprehensive sex education programs at the early, elementary and high school and technical levels in public and private education and programs that reach out to population groups that are not in school. He said that this issue should be included in the current literacy campaign.
Abortion is one of five main causes of maternal mortality and is at a high 9%, according to Ministry of Public Health statistics for 2000-2008.
Susi Pola said that unsafe abortions are a serious public health problem that is closely related to poverty, social inequality and the denial of women’s human rights. Statistics show that around 90,000 abortions are carried out in the Dominican Republic each year.
“There are only eight countries in the world that penalize the interruption of a pregnancy, even when a woman’s life is at risk, the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or when there are known fetal abnormalities,” she stated.
She said that abortion was a failure: “Failure of the educational system, health system, family planning policies and security system and a failure of the state.”
She added that the current laws encourage unsafe abortion and the consequence of adverse health effects. She called for sexual education in schools to prevent teenage pregnancy and other problems.
On the subject of sexual harassment, she commented that in a recent survey 54% of university students said that sexual harassment was frequent or very frequent at universities, 45% thinks that more than 40% of university students have been victims of sexual harassment and 44% knew at least one case of sexual harassment at their university. The findings are from a study “University Students: Perceptions and Attitudes to Gender Violence” by Movimiento sin Aula in five Dominican universities. In public and private entities, the statistics show cases of sexual harassment at 31.9% and 31.4% respectively.
Fausto Rosario said that in regards to the state university, 20% of the students said they had been invited by a professor to go out outside of the university, and 11% said they had been the object of sexual advances from a professor or authority figure.
70% of the students said they knew of a case of sexual harassment at the university. Rosario said that the survey results showed that much work still needed to be done to correct the situation.
www.acento.com.do/index.php/news/46110/56/Conoce-actua-y-exige-oportuna-campana-por-derechos-sexuales-y-reproductivos.html