Rallying cry

While considerable progress has been made over the past six decades by the various regional family planning associations, new and emerging challenges demand that there can be no letup in the area of sexual reproductive health.

This was the statement made by Barbados Family Planning Association (BFPA) Director, George Griffith, as he addressed the opening of the 41st Annual General Meeting at the Hilton Barbados on Saturday night.

“We, the defenders of the sexual and reproductive health and rights of our respective populations, must re-dedicate ourselves to uplifting our people. Firstly, by ensuring recognition and respect for their intrinsic worth and dignity as human beings.

“Secondly, to ensure that we inspire, motivate and support our governments in their efforts to modernise those laws relating to reproductive health and rights, and especially which are ancient, while ensuring that we play our part at the community level, by ensuring the development and maintenance of a wider and deeper understanding of the importance of respecting, defending and promoting the social, cultural and sexual diversity, which is a fundamental feature of today’s 21st century world,” he stressed.

Griffith told those representatives from regional family planning associations gathered for the opening ceremony that they must never tire of their capacity to go against the grain of their respective societies, which can at times be “ambivalent, hypercritical, discriminatory, or downright insensitive to the fundamental rights and freedoms of our most at-risk populations”. (JMB)