Srilankan Women Pre-marital sex,Extra-marital sex & Knowledge on reproductive health- A study
Reported, January 5, 2012
Womens health issues continue to capture the spotlight in everywhere in the world including Sri Lanka. Policymakers are often forced to view womens health by issue area such as breast cancer, chronic disease or pregnancy. However, some claim that a better way to understand womens health involves looking at a womans life comprehensively.
Womens health begins at birth. In to early childhood, health depends on proper nutrition and physical activity, immunizations, and the prevention of conditions like osteoporosis and skin cancer. As girls move into the teen and early adult years, awareness, prevention and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases (STD), HIV/AIDS, violence, tobacco use and substance abuse become a concern for policy makers and parents alike
Pre-marital sex
The incidence of pre-marital sex is not very significant as it accounted only 9 percent of the respondent population. All those women who said that they had pre-marital sex are belonged to the aged 25 years and above. Majority of them have had sex with their boy friends before marriage.
Extra-marital sex The incidence of extra-marital sex is 14.3 percent in the sampled population. One can suggest that a substantial minority of women, particularly, older women are engaged in extra-marital activities in the estate sector.
Knowledge on reproductive health issues
When women were asked whether they are aware of the spread of STD and HIV, about 75 percent of women seemed to be aware of that and this suggests a high incidence of knowledge on the spread of STD and HIV infections. Among those who said that they aware of the spread of STD and HIV infections, majority are belonged to the ages 25 to 29 years. They also said that the spread is possible mainly through sex and blood It also appears that almost everyone consult when they have any sex related problems with husbands, doctor, health worker, parents or friends. However, the following figure shows majority of them consult their husbands while a substantive proportion consults doctors and health workers. We find that the majority of the respondents have received reproductive health information from the health workers but a substantial proportion of women have obtained such information through husbands as well.
The present analysis would like to make two major recommendations as follows:
? The analysis suggests that those who are belonged to the ages 20 years and less do not have sufficient knowledge on reproductive issues and also STD/HIV, in particular. Therefore, age-based approach to Reproductive Health Awareness Campaign has to be employed in order to solve reproductive health problems in the estate sector.
? The present analysis also shows very important aspect about the information obtained on reproductive issues. It appears that most of the women obtain such information from their husbands. However, the awareness from the part of the husbands on these issues seems to be low and not very reliable. Therefore, it is very important to carry out RH Awareness Campaign for husbands in particular and men in general to improve the RH awareness in the estate sector.
Credits:
Colombo University Community Extension Centre,University of Colombo & Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka
More information:
http://www.fpasrilanka.org/