Gender, sexuality and reproductive health

Rana Gulzar Ahmad and Muhammad Ayoub

Quetta, Pakistan

Introduction: As a young Muslim nation with a complex anthropology, Pakistan continues to struggle with a common sense of identity. This struggle also touches our personal lives particularly amongst young people with severe identity and gender stereotyping issues, poverty and low levels of literacy. This confusion is propounded and manifests clearly in sexual behaviors andpractices. Community based sexual health /HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Pakistan must incorporate self-reflection, self concepts and identity issues to ensure ownership and sustainability of their programs. Working on self-encourages/ facilitates strong self-concepts, which translates to assertive behavior, negotiation skills and a sense of rights. Gender identity refers to how one thinks of one’s own, gender: whether one thinks of oneself as a man (masculine) or as a woman (feminine). Society prescribes arbitrary rules or gender roles based on one’s sex. These gender roles are called feminine and masculine.

Methods/procedures: Promote Peer education, Life Skills Training’s and educate public on gender sexuality- for behavior change. Exercise responsibility in sexual relationships, by abstinence addressing power imbalances, negotiation skills resisting pressure during sexual intercourse, encouraging contraception use. Gender Sexuality education must be a central component of development/reproductive health programs designed to prevent STIs/pregnancies and HIV infection.

Results: In Pakistani socio cultural framework is supremely gender and often-sexual relationships are framed by gender roles, power relationships, poverty, class, caste, tradition and custom, hierarchies of one sort of another. Here for many the term “man” is a male gender identity not a sexual identity. The phrase males who have sex with males, or men who have sex with men is not about identities and desires it is about recognizing that there are many frameworks within which men/males have sex with males, many different self-identities, many different context of behavior. The public arena is male dominated and male-to-male friendship is expressed in the public domain.

Conclusions: To bring ownership among individual/communities to work on HIV/AIDS prevention could only be achieved by incorporating self-concepts and identity issues. Must need to explore and understand male-to-male desires, as to involve men, if we are truly to develop effective and sustainable HIV/AIDS prevention strategies amongst males who have sex with male.