A religious oriented approach to addressing female genital mutilation/cutting among the Somali community of Wajir, Kenya

The Somali ethnic community, in Kenya as well in Somalia, Djibouti, and Ethiopia, has practiced genital cutting for centuries and the practice appears to have remained largely unchanged. The community practices the severest form of FGM/C, type III or infibulation. The Population Council’s FRONTIERS program, with support from USAID/Kenya, carried out two studies to better understand the practice of FGM/C among the Somalis in North Eastern Province so as to inform the design and implementation of interventions that would encourage abandonment of the practice. Both studies collected data through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with community and religious leaders, and with recently married and unmarried men and women. The first study also interviewed health-care providers. As described in this report, FRONTIERS has developed a religious-oriented approach to engage with and educate the community about the harms of FGM/C to encourage them to question why the practice is sustained. This strategy is meant to generate discussion with respect to the correct position of Islam on FGM/C and hopefully build consensus among religious scholars so they can become community educators in encouraging abandonment of the practice

Unmet need and unintended pregnancy: The bigger picture

Prevention of unintended pregnancy is often considered the key outcome of reducing unmet need; it is the basic right of women and couples to become pregnant only when intended. This paper explores this relationship by reviewing the definition and measurement of unintended pregnancy, identifying key trends in its distribution within and between populations, and analyzing the relationship between unintended pregnancy, demand for family planning, and family planning program performance. The determinants and consequences of unintended pregnancy are reviewed to further understand the implications of using it as a policy and programming goal. The paper concludes by reviewing the broader policy context in which unintended pregnancy and unmet need are used and identifies important considerations for the future

Achieving synergies in prevention through linking sexual and reproductive health and HIV services

Integration, linkages, and synergies are widely used terms among those interested in strengthening the relationship between sexual and reproductive health services and HIV prevention. These conference proceedings explore the terms conceptually and review the wide range of combinations of SRH and HIV prevention services that have been linked or integrated. Several different combinations have proven feasible and acceptable in pilot situations, but there remains a lack of evidence as to their effectiveness in changing behaviors, including preventing HIV transmission. There is also limited experience with scaling up successful models and a need to move beyond a focus on services to consider system-level changes that will enable successful configurations of linked services to be implemented effectively and sustained routinely. Whether linking or integrating services, the limitations of using clinic-based infrastructures to reach the most vulnerable, including bridging and core populations, need to be recognized at the pilot-testing stage. Asian countries can learn much from the work that has been undertaken in Africa over the past decade when prioritizing between models