UNFPA report: Culture central to development

CULTURE is a fundamental part of people’s lives. Its integration to policies and programs is deemed essential to achieve development, according to this year’s State of World Population report.

Carrying the theme “Reaching Common Ground: Culture, Gender and Human Rights,” the report stressed that culturally sensitive approaches are key to promoting human rights in general and women’s rights in particular.

Speaking at the report’s Philippine launch last Wednesday, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative Suneeta Mukherjee said that culture is central to development, pointing out its deeper understanding could help in the development of policies harmonizing culture with human rights.

While culture affects how people think and act, the report explained that it does not produce uniformity of thought or behavior. “It is risky to generalize, and it is particularly dangerous to judge one culture by the norms and values of another. Such over-simplification can lead to the assumption that every member of a culture thinks the same way.”

Culturally sensitive approaches must then recognize that people in different cultures understand rights in different ways, and that people advocate for rights in ways that suit their cultural contexts, said the report.

Read the State of World Population 2008 report.

Gender inequality

Despite international agreements, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), gender inequality has remained deeply rooted in many cultures.

According to the 2008 State of World Population report, women and girls are three-fifths of the world’s one billion poorest people; women are two-thirds of the 960 million adults in the world who cannot read, while girls are 70 percent of the 130 million children who are out of school.

Some social and cultural norms and traditions perpetuate gender-based violence, and women and men can both learn to turn a blind eye or accept it. The report said that women may defend the structures that oppress them. “Power operates within cultures through coercion that may be visible, hidden in the structures of government and the law or ingrained in the perceptions people have of themselves.”

Mukherjee also explained that poor women are bound by tradition and culture, which are detrimental to their well-being. “Women are not in the position to decide when and with whom to become pregnant and the number of children they will have,” she said.

The UN resident coordinator noted that four babies are born every minute. Eleven mothers die giving birth everyday and every mother who dies leaves behind about three orphans.

Meanwhile, about 3.8 million Filipino youth engage in early sex, and 80 percent of these are unsafe. “Unintended pregnancies ensure that poverty endures from one generation to the next,” Mukherjee said.

‘Cultural fluency and politics’

Partnerships among organizations can create effective strategies to promote women’s empowerment, ending abuses such as female genital mutilation, child marriage, and other harmful practices, the report suggested. “Cultural sensitive approaches call for ‘cultural fluency’ — familiarity with how cultures work, and how to work with them.”

For University of the Philippines anthropology professor Michael Tan, cultural fluency or cultural competency is important in the country in particular because it helps to understand the existing context struggles between Filipino men and women in relation to reproductive health.

Tan cited as example Filipino wives who know very well that their husbands are engaging in unsafe sex with multiple partners, but are not able to ask them to use a condom because culture does not allow it. He said: “For the wife to do that is to say that she does not trust her husband.”

The UP professor pointed out that culture is not a given. “We tend to think that culture is inherited, passed on to generation, and that it’s always been there; when in fact, cultural politics tells us that norms and values are built out of negotiations.”

“(The report) reminds us that these cultural meanings and norms are imposed often by people in power,” Tan said. “The yearbook tells us that the dominant meanings and practices are constantly being challenged.”

“We have to become aware of the different types of power, added Tan, stressing that the most dangerous kind of power is “the hidden or non-coercive.”

Unmet population goal

Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Esperanza Cabral, meanwhile, said that the 2007 national census revealed that the population grew by 2.04 percent, falling short of the government’s 1.9-percent estimated target.

Citing a study done by the UP Population Institute, Cabral also said that the country is the 12th most populous country in the world, growing by 1.8 million people every year.

“This is despite the fact that we’ve recognized the problem of population 14 years ago and have had ‘population program’ in paper, at least, since then,” she noted.

The social welfare secretary emphasized that while the country’s family program aims to provide universal access to poverty planning information and services, a wide gap exists between this goal and its actual implementation and practice.

A major factor, according to the study, is culture, heritage and religion, and its influence on politicians and government executives. “(T)he cultural background and belief orientation of the country are in many instances central to a country’s development or non-development as the case may be,” Cabral explained.

In connection with the ongoing debates on the reproductive health and population development bill, Cabral noted that a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey found that an overwhelming majority of Filipinos — 71 percent — favor the passage of the said legislative measure.

For Cabral, the theme of the 2008 State of World Population Report presents hope for human rights and reproductive health advocates to promote change within one’s own culture.

“We cannot continue to live in a culture of denial, stubbornly clinging to beliefs that are detrimental to our nation and our families’ progress,” she concluded.