Female Condom is a women's right!

Female condoms for all! at the Commission on the Status of Women

On March 1, the Danish and Brazilian governments, in conjunction with Universal Access to Female Condoms Joint Programme and the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), hosted a timely, high-level event at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) about the urgency of expanding global access to female condoms. More than ten government delegations—representing countries as diverse as Mexico, Swaziland, Morocco, Argentina, Sweden, the United States, and Denmark—and sixty NGO representatives from all regions of the world participated in the event: Female Condoms for All!

The session was opened by Carsten Staur, the Danish ambassador of the permanent mission of Denmark at the United Nations. He reconfirmed the Danish government’s strong support for the female condom, emphasizing the need for adequate programming.

The Brazilian Minister of the Special Secretariat for Policies for Women, Nilcea Freire, presented her ground-breaking vision for her country. She emphasized that women should have a choice in which condom they want to use and that there should be different kind of female condoms available. She demanded for universal access to female condoms and suggested one strategy for Brazil could be to build a female condom factory in the country.

Edinah Masiyiwa, Executive Director of theWomen’s Action Group in Zimbabwe, gave insight into why Zimbabwe has been hailed as one of the few female condom success stories.. She articulated that this success is largely attributed to the country’s adoption of the comprehensive condom programming, leadership and coordination, management of demand and supply, and advocacy from non-governmental and civil society organisations. These efforts have led to a decrease in new HIV-infections.

Finally, Adrienne Germain of the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC), a member of last year’s U.S. delegation to the CSW, closed the session by offering attendees strategies and concrete messages to help raise the visibility of female condoms at the CSW. Among many things, she recommended providing strong language around female condoms to be offered during negotiations on HIV and Maternal and Newborn Health resolutions to be considered at the CSW this year.

Knowledge Base

Countries in this article

Denmark

Brazil

UAFC lobby paper

UAFC has developed a profound advocacy strategy in order to achieve acces to female condoms for all. For background on this strategy and to strengthen your own lobby activities you have access to this paper.

download the document

Breaking down the barriers!

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Ilze Smit of UAFC Joint Programme presented the session Female Condom Programming and Advocacy: Braking down the Barriers! at the NGO Forum ICPD+15.

read her weblog

see the photo's of the Forum

Trainings in Rwanda

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"In our daily work in HIV prevention and even in our sexual and reproductive life sessions with potential users, in trainings and advocay, we talk about female condoms as you can see in these photos. I'm pushing to include FC in our major advocay themes. It recently has been included in the Rwanda National NGO forum on AIDS for the four year strategic plan (2009/2012)," says Fortunée Twiyubahe from ACORD/Oxfam International in Rwanda.

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UAFC December newsletter is out

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Knowledge base live

Part of our new website is the revolutionary knowledge base. This is a repository of concepts related to the main theme of UAFC, the female condom. This repository is organized according to themes, geographic location and time. We invite you to start exploring our knowledge base.

If you feel you have anything to contribute don't hesitate to contact us.

ACMS Website

In Cameroon the Association Camerounaise pour le Marketing (ACMS) works on making Female Condoms available to a large usersgroup. ACMS has its own website, with which it reaches especially young people.

Interview with Victoria Archibong, SFH

"I believe the introduction of the male condoms was relatively easier. This could be because it was easier to target men as the “dominant” party in relationships and the ones who will wear the condoms. There was also a lot of support from donors and IPs. The female condom is regarded more as a “woman thing”. Some men may feel threatened as the female condom will empower women in demonstrating their sexual and reproductive health rights. For Female condom programming, programmers have to be more creative and strategic."

read the interview