Morung Express News
Kohima | July 15
Impressing upon that there is mental stigma in our own minds surrounding the issues of “Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights” (SRHR), Siddharth Mohanty, Manager-Advocacy and Partnership, Family Planning Association of India (FPAI) today said that “as parents, we need to start talking about it at home and as teachers and counselors start talking about it in their professional spaces.”
He was speaking at the ‘Youth & Media Confluence on SRHR’ today at Hotel Japfü which was held as part of the ongoing campaign on “Youth Dialogue: A Perspective on FP 2020”. The campaign, officially launched on June 21, 2019 on social media across 16 different family planning branches in 12 states in India, is aimed at presenting views and having dialogues with young people and important stakeholders to understand the unmet needs and challenges of the youth population with regard to Family Planning as a whole.
Siddharth Mohanty said that there are always social and cultural barriers or stigma and discrimination that prevents young people from openly talking about their sexual health but emphasizing its importance, he said, “we have to talk about these issues right from the early stages of their adolescence so they grow up understanding it and respecting each other.” Identifying that lack of awareness in this regard, is one of the key issues in Nagaland, the need for inclusion of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in the school curriculum was also highlighted during the confluence.
Vincent Belho, Branch Manager of FPAI said that when talking about family planning, people already have that preconceived notion but he emphasized that their primary goal is ‘quality and fulfilling life’ to which end, there should be facilities and information as to where one can get access to these facilities.
Discussion on several issues related to SRHR were discussed during the confluence while the FPAI volunteers also shared their experiences of going out in the field and gathering youth perspective and their level of understanding on the subject, the gaps and challenges that they face in this respect.
