Anthony Jeckson Malunga

Together in Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights: a Policy and Strategy Analysis on Male Involvement in Women Sexual and Reproductive Health in Malawi Anthony Jeckson Malunga

The national campaigns to improve the reproductive and sexual health of Malawi?s women have failed in part to achieve their goal. This is because, in breach of binding regional and international Human Rights instruments, these campaigns have excluded the participation of husbands who have a duty to share the protection and realization of this right with their wives. These husbands are excluded based on ignorance, pre-assumption and sheer disregard of the shared role couples have in the reproductive and care role of the children born in the family. This duty is all the more pronounced in Malawi?s heavily patriarchal society in which men exert a significant influence over both the public and private lives of their wives, regardless of whether their marriages are matri- or patrilineal. The writer reviewed Malawi?s health system with a view to identifying the areas in which men?s involvement in the exercise and protection of their wives? sexual and reproductive human right may be accommodated and/or improved. This review, which is presented through the eyes of both marriage partners taken from a sample population in the Nsanje and Thyolo districts of Malawi.