Lilliam Fondeur, coordinator of the Office of Gender Equity and Development of the Ministry of Public Health, would like to see more public support for male contraceptives and pushed for their availability. She criticized that family planning has been left up to women, with anti-conception efforts by the Ministry targeted almost exclusively to women when men have 50% of the responsibility for family planning. She said that findings from a study carried out recently by the UASD Institute for Research, Gender and Family will be helpful in creating an awareness of the need to reach out to men and provide them with access to anti-conception.
She mentions that although social security will pay for vasectomies, studies have shown that only 0.2% of men chose the procedure (2013 Demographic and Health Poll). There are cultural prejudices against vasectomies that need to be tackled, she said.
The UASD research concluded that while the Family Planning Program of the Ministry of Public Health offers eight anti-conception alternatives to women there is little to no information on vasectomies despite these being covered by Social Security, consultations are during working hours and anti-conception information is only offered available in maternity ward areas.
Moreover, she says that only 2.6% of men regularly use condoms to avoid a pregnancy. New research shows there is little readily available information on the use of condoms to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies. “47.3% of the men polled said they have never used condoms with their regular partner, 30.4% said only occasionally with regular partners and 35.5% said they would be concerned if their regular partner would propose this use,” said the study.
Another of the conclusions of the study “Gender and contraception in the Dominican Republic: a look at men” carried out by the UASD institute and presented by Mirna Jiménez, highlights the lack of sex education with gender equality in schools and in the first level of care, due to the resistance exercised by conservative groups and the Catholic Church.
The Minister of Health, Rafael Sánchez Cárdenas, said that the issue of gender is fundamental for health and stressed that cultural challenges persist that must be overcome with the application of public policies that help to tackle cross-cutting problems such as the high rate of teenage pregnancies and maternal-infant mortality.
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Hoy
El Caribe
4 July 2018
