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Mixed reviews from NGOs - PM: "Forget Sex Watch TV"

Sunday Express • Cedriann Martin • 21 August 2005 • 780 words

Last Monday, at a cottage meeting in Thompson Gardens, Tarouba, Prime Minister Patrick Manning reportedly told an audience of "mainly relocated squatters" that "you should only have the number of children you could support". His follow-up suggestion that residents look at television programmes until they fall asleep "instead of doing other things" earned the PM the front-page headline "Forget Sex, Watch TV". And it also earned mixed reviews from local NGOs.

"That has to be a joke," blurted Barbara King of the T&T Innovative Parenting Support.

"We support the view that people should only have as many children as they can afford to maintain," allowed Glennis Hyacenth, ASPIRE's executive director. "But we part ways with the PM as it relates to how to solve the problem."

"I don't think he has personally acknowledged that this is a family planning issue. I think he was talking off the top of his head," offered Ava Rampersad, a YMCA youth facilitator and the Public Relations Officer of the Trinidad Youth Council.

"What I read showed clearly that the Prime Minister is echoing the sentiments of the FPA: that people should plan for the number of children they can afford to maintain," said the optimistic executive director of the Family Planning Association, Dona Da Costa Martinez. "But you really cannot control the sexual lives of individuals, no matter their social or economic status in society."

Behaviour Change Communications manager at Population Services International, Salorne Mc Donald, explained that the challenge of addressing the sexual and reproductive health and behaviour of people in marginalised socioeconomic groups requires tailored strategies.

"He doesn't seem to be aware of the realities," Mc Donald said. "You're speaking to squatters who probably don't have electricity, far less TVs. He needs to remember that people have hormones and disadvantaged people in particular have fewer opportunities to do much else other than have sex, which is practically free.

"I think the statement indicated more of that 'let's defer talking about the topic' attitude. I would have loved the Prime Minister to talk to people about learning more about family planning-not just contraceptives, but communication. In tackling this issue he needs to realise that some socioeconomic groups won't respond to mainstream messages."

King corroborated: "You have to bypass many ingrained beliefs through education. There's the religious belief that you shouldn't use the pill. Then many people have the notion that children are sent by God and you shouldn't interfere with the process. And others think the more children you make, the more people you have to provide for you in old age. You can only get people to change their behaviour through education," she said. King stressed that this education should begin with the youth: "it needs to be part of the education system. Children should have an understanding of what a family is and what it takes to raise one."

Both Hyacenth and Rampersad called for the implementation of the health and family life education programme in all schools.

"Sex education is just part of it," Rampersad said. "You need to address issues like decision-making and self-awareness-all this is part and parcel of the package that would equip people for life." She added that the education drive should also happen at the community level. Rampersad suggested that underutilised civic and community centres could be used to present age and environment-appropriate information on sex and family planning to an older, more hardened audience.

A major issue for people from rural communities, it was noted, is the lack of access to reproductive services. Hyacenth noted that the unavailability of affordable sexual and reproductive health services, including the provision of safe abortions, is manifested by our high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality.

Da Costa Martinez revealed that an FPA outreach team operating from a mobile clinic, currently provides family planning services to 14 under-served communities-from Rampanalgas to Rio Claro.

"We provide pap smear services, contraceptive services, information, counselling and education-all the services provided in a traditional clinic setting," she said. The FPA operates one part of the National Population Program in tandem with the Regional Health Authority. But even with family planning clinics in health centres and the FPA's roving effort, there are still many people with inadequate access to the information and services they need to control the size of their families and the spacing of their children.

"A budget is coming," Da Costa Martinez noted. "The Prime Minister's statement shows that he recognises the need. I want to use the opportunity to make an appeal to government to support the work that is being done."