March 19, 2011 · Posted in: Cross Border, Health Issues
THAILAND: When
Men Talk About Sex
by Sutthida Mallikaew
CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Mar 14 (IPS Asia-Pacific) – Tun Yo may not have known much about the ways of the world when he first came to work in one of the orange groves here seven years ago. After all, he was just a young boy of 14 at the time and one of the thousands of Burmese migrants who pour into Thailand every year.
Indeed, even when he finally got married, chances are he knew little or nothing about family planning or reproductive health. In fact, Tun Yo probably could have cared less.
From Controlling Pests to Discussing Condoms
FANG, Thailand – AT 45, Yun Lungta commands respect from the Burmese migrant workers at the Thanathorn Orange Plantation in Chiang Mai’s Fang district. As head of the workers, his tasks include helping the plantation manager in pest control, along with some administration duties.
Although already busy, he recently took on another role: as a health volunteer who would be teaching workers at the plantation about reproductive health.
The Planned Parenthood Association of Thailand (PPAT) reproductive-health project for Burmese male migrants in part entails the training of some of the workers as health volunteers. Aside from Yun Lungta, 24 more workers from Thanathorn were trained for the project, along with 84 others from another orange plantation, a community of construction workers, and a transport company.
According to project officer Benjawan Srivichai, topics covered during the training of the health volunteers included sexual and reproductive health practices, services, and rights; birth control through artificial contraceptives such as condoms, as well as through vasectomies and tubal ligations; family planning; sexually transmitted disease prevention; and male and female roles.
“This is not the first time I have done something like this,” says Yun Lungta. “(Previously) they provided training on malaria, bird flu, and dengue fever, and I was the one who was trained and then taught the workers what I had learned.”
But he admits that talking about sexual and reproductive health turned out to be harder, especially when his audience included women and when the topics were about negotiations about having sex or using condoms.
Still, Yun Lungta has soldiered on, and he says he is proud that he is able to tell workers at the plantation about the right way of using a condom and how to avoid contracting and spreading sexually transmitted diseases.
He also says that the knowledge he gained from the PPAT project has enabled him to take care of himself better and have more concern for his wife. Yun Lungta even declares that he now understands his wife more.
His wife Ou agrees. Thirteen years younger than Yun Lungta, she says that she feels she can now talk about her needs with him – something that she never thought she could do before.
A pleased Yun Lungta adds that the whole experience has had him thinking more of how he and his wife can maintain a “warm” or healthy family. (Sutthida Malikaew) (END/IPSAP/SM/CCB/JS/11)
That, however, is no longer the case. As one of the participants in a project aimed at Burmese male migrants here in Chiang Mai, Tun Yo recently attended a reproductive-health training workshop that has inspired him to discuss birth control methods with his wife. In addition, he says, he has become conscious of sexual hygiene and has learned about how to avoid getting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV and /AIDS.
“I think compared to women, men are not interested much in their health,” comments Dr. Samphan Kahinthapong, Northern Region director of the Planned Parenthood Association of Thailand (PPAT), which runs the project that received support from the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). “In fact, if men are responsible for their reproductive health, (that) will help both their health and their partner’s.”
It was this thinking that had PPAT creating and then implementing the project that began in June last year and ends in March 2011this month. Aside from offering training workshops that employ some of the migrants themselves as traineors, the project includes mobile clinics that provide contraceptives and treatment, as well as conduct tests for STDs.
In coming up with the project, PPAT had noted that most of the estimated two million Burmese migrants currently in Thailand have limited or no access to health services and education. Perhaps as a consequence, it said, the Burmese migrant community suffered from “early or unwanted pregnancies, early marriage, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs including HIV/AIDS), unsafe abortions, and violence against women”.
The project aimed at providing information on sexual and reproductive health to 4,000 people and related services to 1,000 people. Male Burmese migrant workers at orange plantations, construction sites and elsewhere here in northern Thailand were the target beneficiaries.
It may have helped that most of these workers are Thai Yai, a Burmese ethnic minority in which relations between genders are more equal compared to those in other ethic groupstribes. Yet even then, some men admit to attitudinal changes after taking part in the project.
For instance, they say that they now don’t think of household chores as being solely the burden of women, especially since both men and women these days work outside of the home.
One 37-year-old female worker also says, “It seemed to be embarrassing to talk about sex with my husband, but with the knowledge he now has, I tell him when I don’t want to have sex because I have my period or when I’m so tired.”
“He doesn’t refuse when I ask him to buy my (sanitary pads),” she adds. “If we were in our home community in Mong Pan (in Shan state, Burma), I don’t think he would buy them. The men there feel so embarrassed even to wash look at women’s clothes.”
Other male and female Burmese workers say that after undergoing training as part of the project, men seemed to respect and understand the women more. Participants showed more concern about having “quality” family life, they say.
Project officer Benjawan Srivichai also says increased understanding between the sexes is among the changes they have seen so far among the participants. “Males used to monopolise decision-making, but now they listen to each other more,” she says. “We have heard more about men and women being equal. In addition, male and women workers have more access to reproductive-health services, condoms, and contraceptive pills.”
PPAT is now thinking of extending the project’s life span to ensure that such changes last. Dr. Samphan says as well that doing so would enable PPAT to expand the target beneficiaries to include boys. Moreover, he says, a long-term project would more suitable in addressing the seeming trend of early pregnancies.
Gender expert Niwat Suwanpattana meanwhile says that the PPAT project is a good initiative. But he thinks its focus is too limited to hygiene and contraception. Niwat, who is an advisor to the Thai Network Coalition on AIDS, says that he would like to see it move on to other directions, such as toward encouraging women to see sex beyond being a mere “duty” to their partners..
This is not the first time, though, that PPAT has had a project aimed at Burmese migrants in Chiang Mai. In recent years, it has provided reproductive-health services, but these were mainly for women migrants and consisted of gynaecological exams and pap smears, among others. P Yet while PPAT tends to have projects in the same areas for years, it has no problems with changing its programmes in accordance to the community’s needs.
Migrant workers like Tun Yo couldn’t be happier with its most recent initiative. Says Tun Yo: “I have never used condoms before, and now I know how to use it and that it is used not only for birth control but also for preventing HIV and other STDs.”
“(My wife and I) are also discussing more about when we should have a baby,” he says. According to Tun Yo, the project has made them realise there were many family birth control planning options they could choose from. (END/IPSAP//CCB/JS/11)
