Blogs and opinion

Lina is a young researcher who worked on the Youth Voices Research in Semarang. The Youth Voices Research, of which Lina was a central part, found that young people face intense pressure on how they should look and behave, with these expectations gendered from an early age. Young women are expected to be ‘good girls’ as they prepare to fulfil their expected role as a wife, mother and homemaker. In this blog Lina shares how expectations for girls to look a certain way and to get married early led to her being bullied, and the effect this had on her.

Bobby is a young researcher who worked on the Youth Voices Research in Bandar Lampung. The Youth Voices Research, of which Bobby was a central part, found that deeply embedded gender norms in Indonesia disadvantage both boys and girls. Boys are expected to be tough, not show emotions and to finish education earlier than girls in order to fulfil their role as providers and heads of the household. In this blog Bobby talks about his experiences of gender norms and how expectations of him as a young man affected him

Septy is a young researcher who worked on the Youth Voices Research in Denpasar, Bali. The Youth Voices Research, in which Septy played a crucial role, found that sexuality is rarely talked about at home, leading many young Indonesians to have very low levels of knowledge and awareness about sexuality, personal boundaries, and what constitutes abuse and harassment. In this blog, Septy talks about her experiences of sexual harassment, how taboos about sex meant that she did not understand what was happening to her, and her aspirations for future generations to break the taboo.

Malawi is nicknamed as ‘The Warm Heart of Africa’ because of the remarkable friendliness of its people. During my very first visit to Malawi, I experienced feeling this warmth myself. I also recall seeing groups of teenage girls carrying babies on their backs.

In our She Makes Her Safe Choice programme, Rutgers partners with DKT WomanCare Global to increase access to safe abortion. Alice Decoeur is in charge of the digital marketing for DKT WomanCare Global. Originally from Bordeaux, France, Alice moved to Paris. Very concerned about women’s health advocacy, she quit her job in finance and joined DKT WomanCare Global. In the run-up to World Safe Abortion Day, Alice shares what inspires her in this life-saving job.

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.