tailieunhanh - Gender-based Violence and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: Looking at the Health Sector Response in the Asia-Pacific Region

Health concerns coloured the reproductive intentions of most of the women and some of the men. Many HIV-infected women and men were firm in their desire not to have children. Both women and men feared infecting a partner or their baby and were anxious about leaving either living or future children as orphans. Women and men were concerned about their ability to financially support their children, given their illness. Women who had given birth to an infected child expressed mixed feelings about becoming pregnant again. At the same time, in common with uninfected women and men, many. | Vol. 17 No. 2 2011 ISSN 1394-4444 For Change arrguu Women s Gender and Rights Perspectives in Health Policies and Programmes Published by the Asian-Pacific Resource Research Centre for Women ARROW Gender-based Violence and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Looking at the Health Sector Response in the Asia-Pacific Region Gender-based violence GBV see Definitions page 14 violates human rights and affects sexual and reproductive health SRH . Widely prevalent and socially silenced in most Asian-Pacific countries GBV is increasingly recognised as a major public health concern in the region. GBV restricts choices and decisionmaking of those who experience it curtailing their rights across their life cycle to access critical SRH information and services. It is a risk factor for sexually transmitted infections STI including HIV and unwanted pregnancy in addition to causing direct physical and mental health consequences. A few examples from the region of GBV s impact on SRH include the following Research in India show links between experiencing physical violence lower likelihood of adopting contraception and increased likelihood of unwanted Studies in Kiribati Samoa and the Solomon Islands show that women who experience intimate partner violence IPV were met with higher rates of opposition to contraception See Koziol-McLain. page 15 . Studies in many countries including the Maldives2 and Pakistan 3 have identified that physical abuse has been associated with higher rates of miscarriages bleeding in late pregnancy premature labour or delivery still births abortion and late entry to prenatal Intimate partner violence IPV during pregnancy has been linked to maternal deaths. In Bangladesh where the maternal mortality ratio MMR of340 per 100 000 live births far exceeds the South Asian average of280 5 an estimated 14 of maternal deaths are attributed to In countries such as India and Sri Lanka a significant proportion of .