Citation

Huff-rousselle M. Plan. Parent. Chall. 1998; (1): 26-27.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, International Planned Parenthood Federation)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12293654

Abstract

Dr. Ouk Vong Vathiny is the first director of the Reproductive Health Association of Cambodia (RHAC), the International Planned Parenthood's newest affiliate. Dr. Vathiny's interest in reproductive health began with her first position in a clinic serving women working in Phnom Penh's commercial sex district. Today, she works with RHAC staff to provide a full range of reproductive health services to a wide variety of rural and urban women. Under the direction of Dr. Ping Chutema, the RHAC clinic provides a standard package of safe motherhood services and highlights provision of birth spacing counseling and methods. Although it operates in only three of 22 provinces, the RHAC now distributes between a fourth and a third of all contraceptives dispensed by government services. Dr. Vathiny and Dr. Chutema note that the biggest problem they face is the fact that most women in Cambodia have very little education and that rumors spread faster than real information. Efforts to insure safe motherhood are challenged by high rates of sexually transmitted diseases and by a high prevalence and rate of increase of HIV infection, both of which are exacerbated by the popularity of commercial sex among married men. Domestic violence and women's low nutritional status are also problems. RHAC considers education and counseling essential elements of its safe motherhood package and even trains community-based contraceptive distributors to counsel women on ways to negotiate with their husbands.

Language: en