Bangkok Post - October 7, 2003
Aphaluck Bhatiasevi

Organised by the the Population and Community Development Association, contestants will be voluntarily recruited from participants attending the ongoing Asia-Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health, which has brought together health officials and experts from the Asia-Pacific region.

The competition includes a condom blowing contest and question-and-answers on sexual health.

No participants showed interest in the event, however, after the conference secretariat opened for registration on the first day yesterday.

In the meeting, experts criticised most government policies, which unintentionally led to gender discrimination, causing stigmatisation and burdening women with increased responsibilities.

Marjorie Muecke, director of the Nursing School's Southeast Asia Centre at the University of Washington, said family planning campaigns had put the burden on women, with the responsibility to convince their partners to use condoms, despite the fact that the decision to do so mainly lay with men.

She said the national HIV/Aids campaigns also blamed female sex workers for spreading the virus to clients, who in turn spread it to their wives and children.

Ms Muecke, who has collected information on health and development of several families in Chiang Mai since 1973, said though gender inequality in government policies was unintentional, it had caused a lot of social stigma to women.

Senator Mechai Viravaidya said he would push for a constitutional amendment to slot half of the seats in the upper house for women, with the hope of seeing more balanced gender views in various social development legislation and policies.

"The possibility for change is there. In my country, men have ruined the country enough, let's get more women to run the country," said Mr Mechai, who is also chairman of the association organising the contest. Mr Mechai said the key to success in working on reproductive and sexual health is to ignore discipline.

"If you want to make changes, be ready to say sorry, because it's easier than asking for permission to do things," he said.

Senator Malinee Sukawejvorakit said society would not change until there were enough female politicians to propose law amendment or new laws for the benefit of women, because men tended to concentrate on issues like economic growth and conflicts.

Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan accepted that many sexual and reproductive health problems easily escaped national attention either because they were rarely reported by the media or because they became part of society's day-to-day realities.

"Countless women around the world die due to unsafe abortion, rape, Aids, pregnancy complications, malnutrition or violence inflicted upon them. Thousands of teenagers get pregnant unintentionally and this has a negative effect on their physical and mental health as well as their economic future," she said.

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