Over 300 participants banded together with Minister for Health, Jelta Wong, and the UNFPA in support of the youth campaign on sexual and reproductive health and ending violence against women and girls.
The event was held at the Ralum showground in Kokopo recently.
The campaign, called “Data Tur Bat Vue” in the local Kuanua dialect of ENB, relates to the traumatic challenges faced by young women.
This is because they have no control on the decisions that surround their rights to having bodily autonomy, a right to make their own decisions and being brave enough to do so.
Yet women, girls and all people face constraints on their bodily autonomy. The consequences to their health, well-being and potential life can be devastating. Intertwined with bodily autonomy is bodily integrity, where people can live free from physical acts to which they do not consent.
Women should not have to be reduced to stories of traumatic experiences that gave no allowance to autonomy and integrity.
Regional Director of UNFPA in Asia and the Pacific, Bjorn Anderson, said: “The stories of these girls and women are not exceptions. All around Asia-Pacific and globally, millions of women and girls simply have no control over their bodies and their lives.”
He said social norms must also become more gender equitable.
Anderson said the need for sustained progress at the grassroots level will help to uproot gender inequality and all forms of discrimination and transform the social and economic structures that maintain them.
He also encouraged men to “become allies and commit to stepping away from patterns of privilege and dominance that profoundly undercut bodily autonomy”.
Health providers have a critical role to play in upholding and affirming the bodily autonomy of those seeking information and care.
Primrose Famane, a 23-year-old youth nurse and youth centre officer, during the campaign has called for more capacity building on peer education on SRH and GBV to combat the challenge.
“All of us have a fundamental right to make our own decisions about our bodies.”