Danielle Toppin writes from Jamaica. She has experience with gender and development, and will be covering reproductive health issues in the Caribbean and Latin America.
While acknowledging the “cultural context” in which many students live, Jamaican Minister of Education Andrew Holness has refused to supply students with condoms in the schools.
In a series of diary entries for the Jamaica Gleaner, a young woman living with HIV relates the often neglected psychological effects of HIV infection and young motherhood.
Against a wider backdrop of sexual violence being committed against, and perpetrated by, children and adolescents, the sexualization of under-aged teenagers in Jamaica is extremely problematic.
In a cultural climate with too many examples of stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV, a proposed plan in Jamaica to protect the right of HIV-positive workers could symbolize a major step in the way the country treats this key issue.
A senior public health official in Jamaica recently called for decriminalization and taxation of commercial sex work. Other government officials decried the proposal, but have few effective suggestions of their own.
Because we live in societies that conceive of motherhood as “natural,” policymakers haven’t created adequate support systems for our diverse needs.
Gender activists in Jamaica have noted the persistence of strong links between community-based violence and rape.
The presence of violence – be it emotional, physical or sexual – diminishes the ability of healthy individuals to demand healthy sexual relationships, and by extension a healthy sense of self.
Illegal abortions are one of the top ten causes of maternal death in Jamaica. Safe, legal abortions are only accessible to those who can afford one. Existing abortion “common law” in Jamaica is ambiguous and differs than legislation on the books. Jamaica is in the midst of a heated abortion debate.
Although ideas regarding men’s right to ownership over ‘their’ women in intimate relationships can be found across communities, the practice of cohabitation between under-aged females and older men is predominantly found in communities marked by poverty.
