State of World Population 2012 - Country Page List - UNFPA

Patience Mapfumo, 37,
from Zimbabwe, with
her five-year-old son
Josphat who was born
HIV free.
© Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric
AIDS Foundation
t
policies Limiting family planning
Honduras bans access to emergency contraception
On 24 October 2009, the Ministry of Health of Honduras announced in the
country's official press, La Gaceta, a ban on the promotion, sale, purchase,
distribution and marketing of emergency contraception in pharmacies or
any other locale. Since then, access to and use of this product is not permitted,
even in cases of rape.
Restrictions on family planning in Manila City
For over 10 years, a ban on modern contraception in the city of Manila, the
Philippines, denied women access to family planning. The mayor of Manila
passed an executive order in 2000 discouraging the use of artificial methods
of contraception like condoms, pills, intrauterine devices, surgical
sterilization, and other methods. Health care centres that receive funding
from the city are prohibited from providing modern contraception.
In 2008, plaintiffs brought a case against the city, challenging the constitutionality
of the ban and arguing that it violates the Philippines’ obligations
under international law. The case was dismissed, appealed and then dismissed
again by the Supreme Court. The case was re-filed in April 2009 at
the Regional Trial Court in Manila City.
Sources: International Consortium for Emergency Contraception, 2012; Center for Reproductive
Rights, 2012; Center for Reproductive Rights, 2010; EnGendeRights, 2009.
with HIV will seek ways to express their sexuality
and to plan their families.
Women and men who live with HIV report
intense pressure from family, community leaders,
and health providers to abandon their
desire to have children. Most justifications for
this pressure are related to concerns about the
risk of perinatal HIV transmission or about
the welfare of children, whose parents may
prematurely die of AIDS (Cooper et al., 2005;
IPPF, 2005). As people with HIV increasingly
live longer lives, more are considering becoming
parents. In most societies, childbearing is a
pivotal component of social identity for women
and men; “healthy people” are often expected
to have children as part of familial or community
pressures.
Stigma about the pregnancy intentions of
HIV-positive people varies in different contexts.
Studies in Zimbabwe, for example, find that
women may want children but do not feel safe
enough to realize their desires, fearing potential
backlash from the community in particular
because of potential transmission of HIV to
their children (Feldman and Maposhere, 2003;
Craft et al., 2007). Other studies from Côte
d’Ivoire and South Africa have shown that some
women want to become pregnant precisely to
avoid the stigma of childlessness, based not
only on social expectations that women should
become mothers, but also because avoiding
pregnancy is often interpreted as a sign of HIVpositive
status (Aka-Dago-Akribi et al., 1999).
Because condoms are the most widely available
contraceptive method that also protects
against HIV transmission, the World Health
Organization recommends that men and
women with HIV who are seeking to avoid
pregnancy use condoms, with or without
another contraceptive method (World Health
Organization, 2012; Cooper et al., 2007).
60 CHAPTER 3: CHALLENGES IN EXTENDING ACCESS TO EVERYONE