Blogs and opinion

Wherever you are located in Kenya, you will find one of the 587 RHNK health care providers, who are trained and supported by Reproductive Health Network Kenya (RHNK). These providers are committed to offering quality reproductive health services, including safe abortion, to their clients. They provide these crucial services to all who need them, without judgement, and all while operating in an environment of deeply ingrained stigma and taboos. The global Covid-19 pandemic is now challenging these providers in entirely new ways, yet they continue to find a way to ensure safety and choice remain at the centre of reproductive health care.

In early March, as we marked International Women’s Day and SheDecides Day, with various marches and community outreach activities for women’s rights, the Covid-19 virus started to spread across the world. Now that infection rates are soaring, death figures are rising in Asia, Europe, and the US, an increasing number of countries, also in Africa, are now in complete or partial lock-down. The need to protect women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and their access to safe abortion services becomes more dire than ever. Not only is abortion regularly marked as "non-essential", for example in several states in the US, but the pressure on service providers worldwide is severely increased due to the Covid-19 crisis.

In 2019, Rutgers reached millions of young people across the world with sexual health and rights information. Our Executive Director, Ton Coenen, reflects on the year with some remarkable results from our national and international work.

“Women’s shelters should not need to exist.” This was one of the key messages from the 4th World Conference on Women’s Shelters (4WCWS) that Rutgers and our Prevention+ partners attended last week in Taiwan. The key message was that, in order to prevent the violence that makes many women and girls seek shelter in the first place, it is crucial to continue working with men and boys in an accountable way to stop the cycles of violence and harassment.

How do you develop workshops to convince illiterate parents of alternatives to marrying off their teenage daughters? This was one of the questions posed to Rutgers in the programme Hello I Am in Bangladesh, funded by Ikea and together with BBC Media Action (BBC MA) and our Bengali partners RHSTEP, DSK and PSTC. I am working on behalf of Rutgers in this programme since 2018. In this blog I will share with you the most important lessons we learned in this.

Whilst awareness about contraception is high in Indonesia, stigma about sexuality is exponentially higher.This week as part of the First International Conference on Indonesia Family Planning and Reproductive Health[i], Rutgers WPF Indonesia[ii] hosted a two day training for journalists, where harmful cultural assumptions and behaviors related to sexuality were challenged.

Women Deliver is the world's largest conference on gender equality and the rights, health and wellbeing of women and girls. From June 3rd to June 6th, the Women Deliver Global Conference will take place in Vancouver, Canada. Rutgers will lead a number of side events, as well as host a booth showcasing our advocacy, implementation and research work from across the globe.

After twelve and a half years, Technical Advisor on Gender and SRHR, Rachel Ploem, is leaving Rutgers. Throughout her time at the organisation, the combination of women’s rights and the positive engagement of men and boys was at the heart of her work, leading not only to shifts for the people she worked with, but also to Rutgers itself. Now, against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement and rising conservatism, she reflects.

“After taking part in the Gender Transformative Approach (GTA) Master Training series my way of thinking and working changed. Now, I automatically use a set of tools in my mind. I explore the harmful norms behind sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) situations. I view cases through human rights and intersectionality lenses, and I analyse all power dynamics that are involved. I feel that I gained a strong and clear position in regards to SRHR issues.”

Johnstone Kuya talks about his experience and challenges working as a National Programme Coordinator in Kenya for the programme Get Up, Speak Out (GUSO), one of Rutgers’ key programmes. In this programme, six alliance partners are collaborating in seven countries to improve young people’s sexual health and rights.