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Negotiating Discourses of Shame, Secrecy, and Silence: Migrant and Refugee Women’s Experiences of Sexual Embodiment
In Australia and Canada, the sexual health needs of migrant and refugee women have been of increasing concern, because of their underutilization of sexual health services and higher rate of sexual health problems. Previous research on migrant women’s sexual health has focused on their higher risk of difficulties, or barriers to service use, rather than their construction or understanding of sexuality and sexual health, which may influence service use and outcomes. Further, few studies of migrant and refugee women pay attention to the overlapping role of culture, gender, class, and ethnicity in women’s understanding of sexual health. This qualitative study used an intersectional framework to explore experiences and constructions of sexual embodiment among 169 migrant and refugee women recently resettled in Sydney, Australia and Vancouver, Canada, from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Sri Lanka, India, and South America, utilizing a combination of individual interviews and focus groups. Across all of the cultural groups, participants described a discourse of shame, associated with silence and secrecy, as the dominant cultural and religious construction of women’s sexual embodiment. This was evident in constructions of menarche and menstruation, the embodied experience that signifies the transformation of a girl into a sexual woman; constructions of sexuality, including sexual knowledge and communication, premarital virginity, sexual pain, desire, and consent; and absence of agency in fertility control and sexual health. Women were not passive in relation to a discourse of sexual shame; a number demonstrated active resistance and negotiation in order to achieve a degree of sexual agency, yet also maintain cultural and religious identity. Identifying migrant and refugee women’s experiences and constructions of sexual embodiment are essential for understanding sexual subjectivity, and provision of culturally safe sexual health information in order to improve well-being and facilitate sexual agency.
Journal Article
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Partner Relationships and Sexual and Reproductive Health: Cross-Sectional, Online Survey Study
In the past few months, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has caused extensive economic and social damage.
The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of COVID-19-related measures on partner relationships and sexual and reproductive health in China.
From May 1 to 5, 2020, 3500 young Chinese individuals were recruited through WeChat or Weibo to participate in a survey to obtain information on sexual and reproductive health (eg, sexual desire, frequency of sexual intercourse, sexual satisfaction, etc). The questionnaire also collected demographic data (eg, age, race, education, current financial status, sexual orientation, relationship status, etc).
In total, 967 participants were included in the sexual health analysis. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures, 22% of participants (n=212) reported a decrease in sexual desire; 41% (n=396) experienced a decrease in the sexual intercourse frequency; 30% (n=291) reported an increase in the frequency of masturbation; 20% (n=192) reported a decrease in alcohol consumption before or during sexual activities, and 31% (n=298) reported a deterioration in partner relationships during the pandemic. The logistic regression analysis indicated that the following influenced partner relationships: accommodations during the pandemic (P=.046; odds ratio [OR] 0.59; 95% CI 0.30-0.86); exclusive relationship status (yes or no) (P<.001; OR 0.44; 95 % CI 0.27-0.73); sexual desire (P=.02; OR 2.01; 95% CI 1.38-2.97); and sexual satisfaction (P<.001; OR 1.92; 95% CI 1.54-2.50). COVID-19 also caused disruptions in reproductive health services such as prenatal and postnatal care, childbirth and abortion services, contraception availability, and the management of sexually transmitted infections.
Our results show that many young people have wide-ranging issues affecting their sexual and reproductive health due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures. Strategies and guidelines are needed to safeguard the sexual and reproductive health of young people during this pandemic.
Journal Article
A Media Literacy Education Approach to High School Sexual Health Education: Immediate Effects of Media Aware on Adolescents’ Media, Sexual Health, and Communication Outcomes
Media may function as sex educators for adolescents; unfortunately, media messages often glamorize risky sexual behaviors and unhealthy relationships and neglect sexual health behaviors and communication. Media Aware is a web-based comprehensive sexual health program for high school students that uses a media literacy education approach. It is designed to improve adolescents’ critical thinking about media messages and provide medically-accurate information and skills building related to sexual health and communication. A randomized controlled trial was conducted in 2019-2020 with students (grades 9 and 10; n = 590) from 17 high schools across the United States. The sample was 53% female, 58% white/Caucasian; and 13% Hispanic/Latinx. One high school teacher per school and all of their 9th and 10th grade students were randomly assigned to either the intervention or delayed-intervention (control) condition. The study assessed the immediate (posttest) and short-term (3-month) effects of Media Aware on adolescents’ media, sexual health, and communication outcomes. For 9 of the 17 schools, students were home from school due to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic during the time of their 3-month data collection, which left the short-term analyses underpowered. However, several impacts of the program were found in the immediate posttest analyses. Media Aware was found to improve sexual health knowledge and redress inaccurate normative beliefs about the frequency of risky teen sex. Media Aware also improved critical thinking about media messages with demonstrated improvements in media message deconstruction skills and decreases in the perceived realism of media messages. Moderator analyses found some differential immediate effects of the program attributable to gender. Media Aware reduced girls’ normative beliefs about teen sex, generally, and increased their sexual health communication with parents as well as reduced boys’ acceptance of dating violence. Students gave positive feedback about Media Aware, especially related to the online format of the program. The results from this study provide evidence that Media Aware is an effective web-based program for positively enhancing high school students’ media, sexual health, and sexual health communication outcomes.
Journal Article
The sexual trauma workbook for teen girls : a guide to recovery from sexual assault & abuse
\"The Sexual Trauma Workbook for Teen Girls offers healing, real-life stories from survivors and powerful, evidence-based tools to help you reclaim your life after sexual abuse or trauma\"--Amazon.com.
Book
Barriers to vulnerable adolescent girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health
Background
Vulnerable adolescents are exposed to sexual and reproductive health harms. Ignoring the sexual and reproductive health of this group can have irreparable consequences. The present qualitative study aimed to explore the barriers to the access of vulnerable adolescent girls to sexual and reproductive health.
Methods
In this study, sixteen 14-19-year-old adolescent girls and twenty-two key informants were selected using purposive sampling method. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews, they expressed their experiences of barriers to sexual and reproductive health in vulnerable adolescent girls. The data were encoded using the conventional qualitative content analysis.
Results
Based on the results of the study, neglecting the reproductive and sexual health of vulnerable adolescent girls at different levels leads to serious challenges and obstacles in providing and maintaining it. Lack of a responsible family, the repulsive behaviors of the family and following risky behaviors of peers led to ignoring the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent girls. Unanswered sexual questions, defective life skills, unwanted pregnancy during adolescence, lack of awareness of unsafe sex, violating cultural norms and wounded psyche in vulnerable adolescent girls threaten their sexual and reproductive health. Ineffectiveness of key organizations in providing sexual and reproductive health services alongside lack of legal, political and social support in this area indicate that the sexual and reproductive health of these girls is not a priority for the society.
Conclusion
Numerous personal, family, social, legal and political barriers challenge the sexual and reproductive health of vulnerable adolescent girls. Developing a comprehensive and practical program beside legal and political support for this issue can provide the basis for the sexual and reproductive health of this group of adolescents in societies.
Journal Article
Trauma and madness in mental health services
How do survivors of child abuse, bullying, chronic oppression and discrimination, and other developmental traumas adapt to such unimaginable situations? It is taken for granted that experiences such as hearing voices, altered states of consciousness, dissociative states, lack of trust, and intense emotions are inherently problematic. But what does the evidence actually show? And how much do we still need to learn?
Book
Centring sexual and reproductive health and justice in the global COVID-19 response
People whose human rights are least protected are likely to experience unique difficulties from COVID-19.1 Women, girls, and marginalised groups are likely to carry a heavier burden of what will be the devastating downstream economic and social consequences of this pandemic.2 A sexual and reproductive health and justice framework—one that centres human rights, acknowledges intersecting injustices, recognises power structures, and unites across identities—is essential for monitoring and addressing the inequitable gender, health, and social effects of COVID-19. Three crucial impacts of the PLGHA include decreased stakeholder coordination and chilling of sexual and reproductive health and rights discussions; reduced access to family planning, with increases in unintended pregnancy and induced abortion; and negative outcomes beyond sexual and reproductive health, including weakened health systems functioning.13 Migration policies of deterrence, including closures at US and European borders, force women to live in informal settlements or conditions of poverty for long periods of time, often without basic sanitation and hygiene or access to health care during antenatal and postnatal periods. [...]the response must eliminate legal and policy restrictions to sexual and reproductive health service provision and reverse the PLGHA and Global Gag Rule to ensure comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care for women and girls around the world.
Journal Article