Submission ID 131168
| Issue/Objective | Sexual health education (SHE) is a fundamental human right, yet young people in Dhaka's slums face persistent inequities shaped by gendered norms, patriarchal expectations, and systemic invisibility. In Kallyanpur, where 70% of girls marry before age 18 and 36% become pregnant before 19, young men remain structurally excluded from programming, and existing approaches are neither youth‑friendly nor responsive to their lived realities. We aimed to examine how intersecting social identities and slum precarity shape access to adapted SHE for young women and men aged 15-24. |
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| Methodology/Approach | Using an intersectional approach, the study draws on nine focus group discussions with 58 young people and six key informant interviews with adults involved in a larger youth-centered project. We applied a deductive-inductive thematic analysis to explore how youth navigated SHE across their social, relational, and material environments. |
| Results | We identified four equity‑relevant themes. 1) Interaction between gender and marital status structured social legitimacy and access to sexual health information. Unmarried young women relied on tightly controlled schools, NGOs, and family sources focused on menstruation and child marriage, while married young women turned to proximity networks, in‑laws, and reproductive health services but remained constrained by reproductive expectations. Unmarried young men, excluded across formal, familial, and community systems, depended on peers and digital media, whereas married young men accessed information through spouses and informal networks. 2) Youth navigated solely a fragmented, unequal, and risky information ecosystem: young men faced disproportionate exposure to misinformation and unsolicited pornography, while young women encountered moralizing messages, surveillance, and physical and cyber‑harassment. 3) Intersecting barriers rooted in respectability norms, patriarchal expectations, masculinity norms, and slum precarity produced layered inequities that differentially excluded all four youth profiles from epistemic access to adapted SHE. 4) Despite these constraints, youth mobilized strong agency and resilience, navigating restrictive systems through peer networks and digital platforms and advancing youth‑led solutions such as safe spaces, youth‑friendly SHE tools, and gender‑focused SRHR edutainment videos that strengthen autonomy and reduce shame. |
| Discussion/Conclusion | Young people articulated concrete pathways toward equitable, youth-centered SHE aligned with Global Health Canada priorities, including equity, social justice, gender transformative approaches, and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda's commitment to leaving no one behind. |
| Presenters and Affiliations | Jean Fritz Jacques Laboratoire Solidarités Global Health, Université de Montréal ((UdeM)) Jean Fritz Jacques Laboratoire Solidarités Global Health, Université de Montréal ((UdeM)) Muriel Mac-Seing Laboratoire Solidarités Global Health, Université de Montréal ((UdeM)) Bachera Aktar James P. Grant School of Public Health (JPGSPH), BRAC University bracu.ac.bd/jpgsph |
