Users and policymakers about the female condom

"The male condom was promoted so hard in advertising, through school education and advocacy – we need the same effort for the female condom," Farah Karimi, director of Oxfam-Novib, The Netherlands.

"It is about the right for women to have access to protection and their right to make choices for themselves. Schools should be teaching boys and girls about the female condom but, sadly, most of them are not." Mary Robinson, former President of the Republic of Ireland and honorary president of Oxfam International.

Sandra Mapemba, national condom programme coordinator at the Reproductive Health Unit (RHU) in the Ministry of Health, Malawi, believes the female condom will empower women to have more control in their sexual relationships, help them protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV, as well as unwanted pregnancies.

Statements made in the film 'the female condom is here to stay':

“I feel the female condom is a good thing, I have not experienced any problems with it.” Woman white colar, brown shirt.

“I’m using it for family planning and also to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.” Woman, green shirt.

“I still enjoy having sex!” Woman, purple shirt with white flowers, scarf around head

“The main reason I started to use the female condom is because there was no place for a child in our family. So it has been a means for family planning for us.” Man

“If you look at the development of the female condom it has been very slow and that’s because not enough investment has been made into developing this product. The price is an issue, still is an issue. Also, there was not enough social marketing done in many settings where it could have been available, it was just not brought to the people.” Joep Lange- AIDS Specialist

“In the past, when there was only the male condom women were not empowered on issues of sex.” Eneles Mapira HIV & AIDS worker/activist

“The female condom is very good and feels good when you use it.” Man with white shirt

“The female condom, in my experience, I don’t have any problems with it. I’m going to use it for many years to come.” Woman from quote #1

“With the female condom you can have foreplay and sex is not interrupted. The female condom is also stronger than the male condom.” Man with gray shirt

“I was affected by the black out because it is my only means that I use for family planning. So I was much affected, I did not know what to do.” Woman with purple shirt and child

“That was a reason to stop having sex. The desire was still there, but we wanted to use the female condom. So we stopped having sex because there was nothing we could do” Man from quote #4

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

"I'm going to use mine"

"The male condom was promoted so hard in advertising, through school education and advocacy – we need the same effort for the female condom," said Farah Karimi, director of Oxfam-Novib at a press conference at the International AIDS Confernce in Mexico City. Mary Robinson, former President of the Republic of Ireland added: Girls and women need the skills to say, 'if you're not going to use yours then I'm going to use mine' to their sexual partners."

Read the article in Plusnews.

Empower women in Malawi

Sandra Mapemba, national condom programme coordinator at the Reproductive Health Unit (RHU) in the Ministry of Health in Malawi, believes the female condom will empower women to have more control in their sexual relationships, help them protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV, as well as unwanted pregnancies.