Gender based societal expectations on appropriate female-male behaviors in various situations condone men engaging in high risk sexual behavior, grant men the power to dictate the terms of sex, and make it extremely difficult for women and girls to have control over their sexual and reproductive health. Rigid views about masculinities can lead to sexual coercion and physical and psychological violence against women and children and between men as well as limit men’s participation as ‘caregivers’ and ‘fathers’. As new programs engaging men and boys have been implemented, a body of effective evidence-based programming has emerged. These programs have confirmed that men and boys are willing to participate in discussions related to gender equality and rethinking masculinities and that targeted, well-designed interventions can be effective in changing traditional and rigid attitudes and behaviors that perpetuate gender inequalities. With out meaningful male involvement, SRHR programs will never meet with success.
Research Summary: ‘Improving Access to Reproductive Health Information and Condom Services for Male Youth’ was an operations research project implemented by Pop Council in Bangladesh to determine the feasibility of expanding male youths’ access to reproductive health information and services through their peers. The project selected eleven youth clubs in Dhaka District. A quasi-experimental design was used to assess the impact of interventions viz.
Two project implementation committees were formed and fourteen peer educators were identified and trained on the reproductive health module so that they could conduct four one-hour sessions among their peer club members. BCC materials were also provided. A total of 1,005 youth members aged 15–24 years were identified, and baseline information was collected from 705 randomly selected youths. The quality of reproductive health information delivery was monitored and feedback was provided to 'peer educators' to improve the way they delivered the information. In addition, several outdoor activities such as dramas, games were also organized. The end line survey was completed in February 2006. The pre- and post-test surveys indicated that training peer educators resulted in a significant increase (47 percent) in reproductive health knowledge among male youth. The peer educators reached 80% of targeted male youths who attended at least one reproductive health educational session and more than 73% of the targeted youths attended all four of the sessions. Condom sales among the youths also increased significantly: http://www.popcouncil.org/projects/RH_BanglaMaleYouth.html
Resources: ‘Shedding Abuse: A Course for Men who use Domestic Violence’ is a manual which outlines steps and materials for running a group course for men prone to the use of domestic violence. http://www.networklearning.org/download/domestic-violence.pdf
News: Men Engage is a global alliance to engage men and boys in gender equality and ending violence. It has organised a regional consultation at Kathmandu from 30th January to 2nd February 2007 to bring together organizations and experts working on male engagement. (For more on the consultation, write to: access@ippfsar.org )
Events: A training program on Social Audit will be held at Lahore from 18 to 22 March 2007 for IPPF Member Associations (MAs) in Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan. Consequent to this training, these MAs will be able to use a set of tools and methodology to understand the social impact of their programs in their respective countries.Contact: access@ippfsar.org
(Please send your feedback/information etc. to access@ippfsar.org )
IPPF SARO Team