Safeguarding sexual reproductive health rights in the local communities

Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence.

Women in Cameroon have greater reproductive health needs and the responsibilities for the reason being that, it is a woman who carries the pregnancy and all the risks associated with it. More so, it is she who goes through childbirth, breastfeeding and the child upbringing course and it she who is charged with the responsibility of the nutrition and general wellbeing of her baby. She is also the one who is charged with the responsibilities of general care of the family among her other daily activities. Thus for a woman to effectively carry out all her responsibilities efficiently, family planning is a must. This is so because, promotion of family planning has been shown to reduce poverty, hunger, maternal and infant mortality, and contribute to women’s empowerment.

In Cameroon, most women especially those in rural communities have no say as concerns the number, neither the spacing nor the timing of their children. Rather, their husbands decide on the number and at times the sex of the children she has to bear. In some cases, a woman might end up having ten children in the course of looking for a particular sex for her husband. Bafanji, a community in the Ndop health district is one of the most affected health areas experiencing this situation. In this community the main occupation is farming (usually primitive farming) and women form the backbone of the workforce in most homes. Consequently these women have to work extra hard to put food on their tables and ensure their children acquire education. These rural women leave their homes early in the morning and usually, only return in the evening, some of whom could be seen carrying their little babies on their backs while holding along with them those that can barely make steps. Most of these women consider this very challenging as these children rely solely on them for food, clothing and education.

One of the biggest challenge these women face is the fact that their marriages are usually polygamous, thus the attentions of their husbands on their children are usually divided so much so that, the entire responsibility (of education, feeding etc) is pushed back on these women. Many a time their husbands die during the early live hood of their children, leaving behind the entire burden on the surviving widow. Consequently these women become overburden with these responsibilities and finally die shortly after the death of their husbands leaving these children in a devastating social and economic state.

 

Following Act No. 80/10 of July 14, 1980 authorizing the sale of contraceptives ( Article 79 of  this act stipulates that only pharmacists may sell prescription medications and contraceptive products)[2], family planning was adopted and initiated by many non-governmental agencies through the community health center of Bafanji, as a means to overcome this problem. Surprisingly, contraceptive use has been rejected by most husbands in this community for fear of distorting their sexual pleasure and these husbands have put up strategies to ensure their wives do not get these contraceptives at the health center. Although some of these women successfully sneak to the health center to obtain their contraceptives, others have decided to secretly take their contraceptives from road side vendors for fear of being caught by their husbands. More often than not, women could be spotted in dark corners on market days, being injected by vendors with contraceptives. This situation becomes worsen by the fact that, these vendors are not health professionals and their sources of supplies are usually doubtful. In spite of these, most of these community women still decide to take the risks in order to be free from the burden of taking care of so many children. The dilemma in this issue is that every woman in Bafanji wants to keep her marriage, at the expense of her health. Consequently roadside contraceptives (which have been proven to be very harmful) may continue to levy serious negative consequences on our women in Bafanji. It is thus imperative for the Cameroon government to take steps to ensuring and securing the sexual reproductive health rights of women especially in the rural communities, by increasing access to adequate family health planning methods.

 

Posted by Franklin Titang

Policy & Advocacy Manager, VAHA