Training Young Women in Family Planning

The International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing accorded the highest priority to promoting gender equality, women's empowerment and the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. Also, the Beijing Platform for Action firmly established that "the human rights of women and the girl child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of all human rights and fundamental freedom".

In most of the Asian countries, there have been small-scale innovative activities in youth reproductive health programmes. Jaito Tarun Sangha (National Youth Organization) in Bangladesh, which is run by young volunteers, provides primary health care to about 1,000 village and urban communities. In India, the National Committee of Youth Organizations, which is the coordinating body of more than 60 national youth organizations, operates four regional youth training centres which include adolescent fertility as a part of their training. In Indonesia, the youth wing of the ruling party plays a very important role in mobilizing youth, particularly young married couples. In Sri Lanka, the National Youth Service Council has been active in sex education programmes for young people.

In China, Family Planning Associations (FPAs) rely heavily on the services of unpaid volunteers, numbered in tens of millions, who generally do not provide contraceptive services (this service is undertaken by the Government) but who work in their own communities giving advice on family planning, child care and related family matters. Their main aims are to reduce the incidence of abortion due to contraceptive failure, by ensuring that couples understand the proper use of contraceptives and by campaigning for a wider choice of methods, and to educate families on the value of girl children.

In Fujian Province in southern China, the FPA of Minhou County, through supervising its members' network, has been monitoring the performance of government personnel at all levels to eliminate any possible abuse. It has urged the authorities to ensure that incentives are given in the form of preferential assistance to family planning acceptors. The county government has provided special maternal and child health services to over 50,000 women of reproductive age and all their children up to the age of eight, and it has set up insurance schemes for one-daughter families, such as child safety and family planning pension insurance.

Since 1993, a group of trained male and female students aged 16 to 22 years in Lucknow, India, have been reaching fellow youths with correct information on youth sexuality and reproductive health. Calling themselves the Young Inspirers, they fully manage the project with guidance from the Family Planning Association of India. Among the groups activities are in-school poster competitions, essay writing, role playing etc. Futhermore, the group conduct outreach work with employed youths, such as rickshaw pullers, mini-taxi drivers and train station workers, through lectures that heavily rely on visual aids. Also peer counselling play an importend part of the groups work. Group members counsel their peers at school and in residential neighbourhoods. If follow-ups are necessary, youths are referred to the counsellor at the Family Planning Association clinic.

Being youths themselves, the Young Inspirers understand the diversity of youth problems. This has led to the encouragement of youth participation in project implementation. The group's activities have thus enabled youths to express their concerns and suggest ways of overcoming their problems.

Taken from the publication: “Review of the Youth Situation, Policies and Programmes in Asia and the Pacific”, ESCAP, 1997