On the eve of the United Nations Special Session on Children, Naira Khan, Executive Director of the Child & Law Foundation (CLF) based in Harare, Zimbabwe, spoke with the Reproductive Freedom News (RFN) while in New York City for the launch of the Center's and CLF’s report, "State of Denial: Adolescent Reproductive Rights in Zimbabwe." Khan is a co-author of the report.
The report documents a reproductive health crisis in Zimbabwe where up to 26% of 15-24 year old young women are infected with HIV/AIDS. The report is based on more than 800 interviews with adolescents, parents, government officials, non-governmental organizations and UN agencies. It concludes that young people are denied their human right to access reproductive health information and services.
RFN: What do you think is the immediate and long-term value is of this report? How will it contribute to your work to remedy Zimbabwean adolescents’ lack of access to contraceptive services and information?
Khan: Our vision was that the report would serve a number of functions, the first function being intervention at the international level, which is what is happening now. The second level was to utilize good, solid research to mobilize children and stakeholders back home and to get them to expand this intervention to take into account some of our findings in terms of adolescents’ access to services and information. Our long-term vision is that children take up the issue. If children are clear about the facts, they are more likely to provide information to other children. If children have the wrong facts, as they have had, as you can see from the report, then they are passing around myths about reproductive health and rights.
RFN: In using the report as an advocacy tool, who will be your target audience?
Khan: What we need to do is gain access to the children. We don’t have access to the children because the Ministry of Education preaches abstinence and parents don’t like to have their children talk about sex and sexuality. There is some kind of myth in their minds that if children have this information [about contraception] that they will go out and have earlier sexual relationships, which is laughable, because even though they don’t have information, they go off and experiment very early on. Our strategy, in terms of launching this report, is to provide all government ministries with the information [in the report]. We also want to have the minister of education be part of the launch [in Zimbabwe] next month. Before the launch, we will hold a workshop to get feedback from all the stakeholders to help draw up a plan of action.
RFN: If the rights of adolescents to reproductive health services are restricted at the end of the Children’s Summit, will that affect your work in Zimbabwe?
Khan: Whatever happens at the international level filters down nationally. If good things happen you can use that nationally to say, "you know what, we don’t have a choice, we have to get on and do this."
RFN: Is there any possibility of using the courts to help Zimbabwean adolescents have a clear and definitive right to access contraceptive services and information?
Khan: It would have to come from the children. The movement to get access to anti-retroviral drugs [in South Africa] came from people living with HIV. Our role is to empower children with ways they can change their lives. To actually to go out and litigate would be very difficult because of cultural issues in Zimbabwe.
RFN: What do you see as the role of international donors in addressing the issues raised in the report?
Khan: You can’t force people to have a revolution. You can’t have a revolution for people. They have to have their own revolution. All you can do is facilitate and encourage that revolution. I think that is their [international donors’] role. They have to be facilitators and encourage communities to say, "you know what, in our village we want to have condoms all the time. We cannot place our kids at risk from HIV. We want them to have access to condoms and family planning services and good healthcare." I think that has to be the stance. We have to get people moving and they have to come along with us.
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