Advocacy to Media on Gender
& RH/R Needed More than Ever

Since 2000, a rising global tide of conservatism has threatened advances in reproductive health and rights (RH/R), and gender equity agreed to at ICPD Cairo in 1994, and before.

On 1 November, JOICFP and the Council on Population Education (CPE), supported by the Packard Foundation, held a media seminar at JOICFP on gender equity and RH/R, based on the UNFPA State of World Population report 2005. Around 30 participants from the major daily newspapers, news agencies, publications concerned with health and women's issues, and from NGOs attended.

Yuriko Ashino, Senior Adviser, Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA) first delivered an historical and comprehensive overview of gender equity and RH/R, citing the pioneering work of Margaret Sanger and Shidzue Kato, and showing the progress that had been made, especially in the last 30 years.

Ashino explained why gender was an indispensable issue, and the role of the mass media in raising consciousness on gender. She also emphasized that issues in RH/R and gender had to be successfully tackled if the UN MDGs were to be achieved.

60 million 'missing'

Ashino gave some harrowing statistics on the situation of women's and girl's health around the world.

Annually around the world

Over 500 thousand women die of pregnancy and delivery related complications

Between the ages of 15 to 19 years, 14 million girls give birth

There are 45 million induced abortions

19 million of these are unsafe and 68,000 women and girls die as a result

There are 76 million unplanned births, one-third of the total number

From 600 to 800 thousand people are trafficked of whom 80% are women and girls, usually for sexual slavery

In addition

Around 20% of women have been sexually abused

Around 33% of women have suffered violence at the hand of a partner or 'loved one'

Out of new HIV infections, young women were disproportionately affected

There are 60 million 'missing' girls, the result of selective infanticide

Ashino stressed that these deaths and misery were preventable, and that the media needed to play its part in keeping the issue in the public and political awareness.

Following in the footsteps of the US, Japan is becoming more influenced by conservatives who believe that sexuality education, gender equality, and RH/R violate family values. Ashino said that the “Global Gag Rule,” the withholding of funding to UNFPA, and the US policy of denying comprehensive sexuality education were harming the youth of today.

Ashino (left) addresses media representatives at the seminar

In a question and answer session, Ashino urged the press to present a counterbalance to the conservatives' trend of selective and erroneous use of data to support their views. Pro-choice groups, for example, need to assist youth and prevent a clampdown on RH information and access to services.

Ashino finished by saying that cases of STIs/HIV/AIDS were rising in Japan, especially among young people, there was a lack of comprehensive sexuality education, countermeasures against gender-based violence were low, and that gender in general was a low priority among the mass media.