Posted on 02 June 2010
(irin) More people are turning to family planning in Tanzania’s semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar as the government seeks to improve access to reproductive healthcare. Funding, however, remains a challenge. “We have been moving on well in the recent months as the turn-up for family planning by both men and women is impressive. Acquiring enough contraceptives for our clients remains the biggest challenge,” Hanuni Ibrahim Sogora, the director for family planning in Zanzibar’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, told IRIN. Health officials say a culture of polygamy and low male contraceptive use has limited the number of women accessing reproductive healthcare services. “The major problem is a lack of male involvement in family planning. For example, if a mother comes to the clinic with her baby, there is no harm if the husband can escort her because whatever information is given is important for both,” Kassim Issa Kirobo of the Zanzibar reproductive health programme, told IRIN. “The men say we are busy looking for a livelihood.” Kirobo, the programme’s behaviour change officer in charge of communication and information, said: “The women may also want to use the [family planning] services but the men have the last word.”
Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89313
Posted on 16 April 2010
(IRIN) – Hundreds of religious leaders running Koranic schools in Senegal are keeping their students in “slave-like” conditions, forcing them into exploitative labour through begging on the streets and depriving them of food or medicines, says US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a new report.
The governments of Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, Islamic leaders and parents are failing to stop the practice and protect children from such exploitation and abuse, it says.
“As the forced begging is done with a view towards exploitation, it is a practice akin to slavery,” says HRW. “For at least 50,000 children in Senegal, economic exploitation is masquerading as religious education, as children are forced to beg for long hours to benefit the teacher, and are subjected to severe physical abuse for failing to meet his quota,” Matthew Wells, report author, told IRIN.
These children, who live with a `marabout’ (religious leader) and attend his school or `daara’ are known as ‘talibés’ in Senegal. Over half of them are under age 10 and some as young as four. They spend over seven hours each day pacing the streets to reach their quota – on average 87 US cents – and the “overwhelming majority” HRW spoke to, are regularly beaten if they do not bring back the full amount.
Some 99 percent of the `talibés’ HRW spoke to must beg for their own food and medicines.
“When I could not bring the quota, the `marabout’ beat me – even if I lacked five CFA [francs], he beat me. It was always the `marabout’ himself,” a 13-year-old former `talibé’ told HRW. “He took out the electric cable and… I stood there and… he hit me over and over, generally on the back but at times he missed and hit my head.”
Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88828
