The Hindu Business Line : <I>Sexuality and development </I>

There is no need to panic fearing some risqué observations. A quite respectable academic discipline is now part of the set-up in reputed universities centring round the implications and consequences of the impact of sexuality and development on each other. The South and South-East Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality recently hosted an on-line discussion on ``Sexual pleasure, Sexuality and Rights".

The Approach

The April 2006 issue of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) established under the auspices of Sussex University in the UK is entirely devoted to the subject, exploring such questions as: What is sexuality? Is sexuality a development issue? How should development approach the issue of sexuality? This piece is heavily indebted to the insights provided by the IDS publication.

The analysis of the mutual relationship is predicated upon the proposition that "development policymakers and practitioners have allowed their own prejudices and embarrassments to block the realisation of the connection between sexual rights and well-being...This tendency is now reinforced by a conservative backlash around sexuality spurred by fundamentalist influences... Development work has tended to focus on sexuality only in relation to disease and violence, on the risks and dangers, rather than the pleasures and fulfilments". Sexuality should be recognised as a "super-force" to be channelled to bring about a positive, well-integrated personality which, in its turn, will make for an overall environment of harmony and enrichment of society.

Charter of rights

The World Health Organisation (WHO) itself has put sexual awareness at the heart of total human fulfilment, calling it a "central aspect of being human throughout life", influenced by "the interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural, ethical, legal, historical, religious and spiritual factors". It has drawn up a comprehensive charter of sexual rights including the highest attainable standard of health in relation to sexuality; access to sexual and reproductive health-care services; free flow of information and provision for sexuality education; respect for bodily integrity; choice of partner; consensual sexual relations; consensual marriage; deciding whether, and when, to have children; and so on. These have also secured the endorsement of the Cairo Conference on Population and Development (1994), the Platform of Action adopted by the Beijing Conference on Women 1995.

The realisation that there can be no development without both sexes playing their full part in a spirit of mutual support and respect has been the inspiration for organisations such as Women for Women's Human Rights in Turkey and the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies working in West and South-East Asia.

Inhibitions and taboos

Although, worldwide, the variegated dimensions of the issue has been brought into the open, there are still inhibitions and taboos that act as obstacles to concerted action by governments and civil society that "shifts the focus from negative to positive, from violence to pleasure...(and) enables people to live out healthier, happier sexualities free from violence and fear."

Unfortunately, repressive laws, penal systems, religious injunctions and personal codes continue to operate in most countries with the result women are marginalised as second-class citizens without being involved in the full range of development activities except for purely manual jobs. Any development strategy should take account the adverse effects of indifference to sexuality in its broadest connotation as defined by the WHO on health, gender equity, human rights and general welfare.

(Those who want to have a fuller exposition, including Robert Chambers' framework of multiple dimensions of poverty in relation to sexuality, can visit www.ids.sc.uk/ids/index.html)

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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