Women's access to sexual reproductive health and rights services in Mozambique: advocacy strategies to address barriers

Abstract

Global recognition of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for all was sealed during the United Nations' 4th International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994. Short after, Mozambique ratified several international agreements (including Millennium Development Goals protocol) and several national interventions aimed to promote gender equity and the empowerment of women in many areas including sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Emerging from its transition and liberation from Portuguese colonial rule to post-colonial civil war, and subsequent constitutional democracy. Mozambique has faced many barriers in realising social, cultural, political, and economic transformation for its vulnerable populations including women and children. Women, for example, face many economic and social barriers including access to services and opportunities for advancement, patriarchal attitudes, and other exclusionary practices that constrain equity. Additionally, the burden of sexual and reproductive ill-health remains enormous for women. Women in Mozambique still face barriers to access sexual and reproductive health services. Those barriers can occur at individual/demand level, provider level, and system/structural level. The complexity of health inequalities and barriers to addressing SRHR and all its determinants is the focus of this paper. Through an analysis of primary and secondary information from a Cochrane-style systematic literature review, we focus on barriers that prevent women from accessing sexual health services highlighting a case study of Mozambique.