Access to Contraceptives is a Human Right!

Written by: Purna Shova Chitrakar Following the call of WGNRR to celebrate May 28: International Day for Action on Women’s Health, Women Development Society did not conduct a large scale program with many participants. Rather, a team from WODES went to the remote village Bagahi, located in the Rautahat district. We strove to meet as many Muslim women as we could. We needed to find out about the awareness about and use of contraceptives and their reach to such devices.

As soon as we reached the village, the women welcomed us and presented us with the juice made from seasonal fruits, which were, at the time, watermelon and Bayar. We talked to them informally about the subject of our program.

All of the women were wearing Burka (Parda) of Saris. They seemed shy to talk to us. We then introduced ourselves and the organization and then presented them the aim for our visit. They began to talk to us about their village.

This village is a Muslim-majority area. The Muslim society does not believe in contraception. They believe in the Koran, which says that the number of children that a person begets is determined by the Allah. How these children grow up is also determined by the Allah.

One of the participants told us about a “special” woman who lived in the village. We asked who this woman was. We went to her home. I greeted the woman with a Namaste. The local friend who took us there told us about the women. She told us that the woman was the first in the entire village to use contraceptives. Only after this did other women conduct family planning. Women from the village respect her because of the courage it took her to do this. I understood then how things stood in the village. I presented this courageous woman with another Namaste. I took a guess at the difficulties she had to face from the society.

The society is changing slowly, but society, religion, culture and tradition play a considerable role in binding people to norms that have outdated for some time. In this community, social, religious, cultural and traditional barriers are present to hinder understanding of accessibility of contraceptives as a Human Right.