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MORAL POLICING by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry through its Nur Sejahtera family planning clinics?
The women’s ministry through its board runs 59 Nur Sejahtera family planning clinics throughout the country. Fees charged at these clinics are generally higher than at the Health Ministry-run maternal and child health clinics.
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According to the World Health Organization (WHO), men and women have the right to be informed of and have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of fertility regulation of their choice.
“Reproductive health, therefore, implies that people are able to have a responsible, satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so,” according to its web site.
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M’sia ministry says single women allowed contraceptives only if they agree to counselling
M’sia ministry says single women allowed contraceptives, only if they agree to counselling http://tdy.sg/1NtAw6n
KUALA LUMPUR — The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry in Malaysia has confirmed that single women are only prescribed birth control at its clinics if they agree to “counselling”, a policy it insists is aimed at discouraging “random sex”.
Contacted over claims that public sexual healthcare providers were biased against unwed women, Dr Komathy Thiagarajan, who heads the Clinical Unit at the Human Reproduction Division under the ministry’s National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN), said the national family planning policy was initially drafted with the purpose of reducing the “Total Fertility Rate” (TFR) among married couples.
But with a currently low TFR, she said the focus on family planning was now to reduce the “unmet needs” including that of single women.
“So, based on the existing policy, the family planning service to unmarried women is not prohibited.
“However, those women have to go through counselling to ensure they are using family planning only to avoid unplanned pregnancies and not as an easy excuse to practise random sex,” she said in an e-mail interview.
Checks by Malay Mail Online at one Nur Sejahtera clinic run by the LPPKN showed that the revised directive did not appear, however, to have reached the staff treating the public.
Nurses manning the registration insisted only married women may sign up to get their services while Malay Mail Online’s attempt to obtain the “counselling” for single women, which Dr Komathy mentioned, was unsuccessful.
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Malay Mail Online
Discrimination against single women in public sexual health services?
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KUALA LUMPUR Oct 25 — Public sexual healthcare providers appear to be discriminating against single women on moral grounds, with clinics regularly withholding access to contraceptives, among others, without proof of marriage.
Despite the lack of directives to limit universal sexual health care to the married, its provision by government clinics to unwed women is inconsistent from one location to another.
Recent attempts by Malay Mail Online to obtain contraceptives at one such clinic was initially denied as caregivers there insisted that they have never provided birth control medication to unmarried women, although the reporter was able to convince them to dispense these after a long negotiation.
At another clinic, also in the Klang Valley, the nurses outright said it is mandatory for clients to bring in their marriage certificates in order to be registered and treated.
Calls to 18 maternal and child health clinics in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor also supported the suspicion that unmarried women face informal barriers to obtaining sexual health services that are provided unchallenged to their married counterparts, with all saying they must check if they are allowed to dispense contraceptives to singles.
Seven later said no, while five said it is not encouraged; another said to seek the doctor’s advice first.
Six said it was possible after further checks, although one said it was necessary for patients to disclose their religion, explaining that Muslim women must provide proof of marriage in order to obtain the medication.
Premarital sex and sex in general remain taboo subjects in conservative Malaysia, and such views are hampering access to sexual health services at government clinics in times of changing norms and values.
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Malay Mail Online
Ministry says single women conditionally allowed contraceptives to guard against ‘random sex’
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 25 — The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry has confirmed that single women are only prescribed birth control at its clinics if they agree to “counselling”, a policy it insists is aimed at discouraging “random sex”.
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Malay Mail Online today reported of apparent bias against single women at government-run sexual healthcare providers, the majority of which insisted that unwed women may not register and obtain their services.
One clinic that said single women may obtain sexual health treatment such as access to contraceptives had added that this did not apply to Muslims, whom they claimed could only sign up with proof of marriage.
The unofficial barriers to single women securing contraceptives from public healthcare providers also come at a time when cases of teen pregnancies and baby dumping are on the rise.
Health Director-General Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said his ministry did not have directives to discriminate against unmarried women as its policy was to provide services to all regardless of age, sex, marital status, socio-cultural, religious values or political inclination.
However, he conceded that there is variation in practice among primary health care providers “as issues surrounding unmarried sexually active women are sensitive and complex”.
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