On the day of the world, we have to say clearly: contraception is not just about family planning, but about freedom. To decide whether and how many children are the basis for the autonomy of women, their dignity and their economic independence. Without this power, any other promise of authorization – upbringing, work, equality – on a shaky soil. In India, this fundamental right is repeatedly refused, reduced to sterilization to state -sanctioned obsession and filtered by patriarchal norms that roam women of choice.
The history of contraception in India is a systemic prejudices. Female sterilization makes two thirds of all modern contraceptives used so that after NFS-5. On paper, India’s public health system offers eight contraceptive options – condoms, oral pills, emergency contrasts, intrauterine devices, hormonal injection agents, the cent chroman pill and the sterilization of male and female. In practice, however, the landscape of choice is narrow, shaped by decades of population control policy that women have occupied as the primary place of intervention. The female body has long been the terrain on which the state organizes its demographic ambitions, while men remain almost absent in the reproductive equation.
The female body has long been the terrain on which the state organizes its demographic ambitions, while men remain almost absent in the reproductive equation.
In the meantime, reports on deaths from botched sterilizations in the public health system occur every few months. In May this year in Rajsamand, Rajasthan, Dali Bai, just a few days after the delivery of her fourth child. died After a sterilization operation, her family claimed and claimed that she was never regained awareness. Such cases show how sterilization is not risk -free, especially if it is carried out under ideal conditions.
This weird would not matter if sterilization would be a choice that was freely exercised after informed advice. Instead, it often reflects systemic pressures and limited information. NFS-5 shows that more than a third of women who apply a method are not sufficiently informed about its side effects or other available options.
In West IndiesIn particular in Maharashtris areas affected by drought, women report on sterilization in response to climate stress. In a vacuum, the logic is not just a voluntary choice: Dürren reduce the harvest yields and thus income; The care of children under these conditions is considered precarious. In many cases, sterilization is regarded as a means of reducing uncertainty or risk for the family under environmental pollution.
The invisibility of male contraception only sharpens injustice. Vasectomy in India makes up less than 1% of contraceptive use, although they are easier, safer and less invasive than the sterilization of women. This decline has been constant since the 1970s, driven by myths that vasectomy causes weakness or impotence. The lack of large-scale campaigns to hire men reflects the underlying conviction that the reproductive and their loads-is assigned to women. As a result, women carry the physical surgical risks, the emotional weight of the stigma and the unpaid work of child rearing and at the same time strive to take part in the paid workforce.
Women’s bodies are not treated as autonomous, but as machines that are deprived of rights and dignity. This is not a health care – it is pure exploitation.
Sometimes this denial of choice transfers this denial into complete violence. Several reports from Rajasthan And Maharashtra Poor agricultural workers put under pressure in hysterectomies. The reason: women without a uterus are considered “more productive” because they do not need free time for menstruation or pregnancy. Women’s bodies are not treated as autonomous, but as machines that are deprived of rights and dignity. This is not a health care – it is pure exploitation. And it is only the most extreme expression of a wider truth: the reproductive work of women is routinely exploited for economic or demographic goals, while its autonomy is still secondary.
Patriarchal control brutally cuts education and marriage. One of four The Indian women are married before the age of 18. Early pregnancy is a natural consequence of early marriage, the girls are pushing out of school and thwarts the possibilities of financial independence. The lack of comprehensive sexuality intensifies things and makes young people susceptible to myths, shame and unintentional pregnancies. NFHS-5 data showed that only 10% of Indian women make independent decisions about their own health care. These are not just statistics; They are proof of a society that systematically refuses the agency of women. The denial of contraception is therefore not just a medical gap, but a political act: it keeps women economically dependent, visually disadvantaged and socially subordinate.
It is not the case that women are not ready to use contraception. The undedized need for family planning remains with 24 million women. This is not a lack of interest; It is unfulfilled demand. Women want to place and plan their pregnancies, but there is information, access, affordability and – above all critically – permission. If women cannot plan, it confronts higher risks of maternal mortality, lower chances of creating education and reduced prospects for decent work. If you can, the advantages multiply. Education increases the likelihood of participation in the workforce. Paid work strengthens the decision -making authority in families. Economic independence in turn makes access to health care and contraception safer. Fertility, authorization and work are not separate stories. They are strands of the same network.
Condoms are rejected as unreliable, and male sterilization is caricatured as a detention. These myths exist because there is no extensive sexuality, because the public discourse is still checking and because the patriarchy thrives in silence.
And yet misinformation continues to solve this network. Pills are still demonized as infertility. Intrauterine devices are rejected with the absurd claim that they “move around the body”. Condoms are rejected as unreliable, and male sterilization is caricatured as a detention. These myths exist because there is no extensive sexuality, because the public discourse is still checking and because the patriarchy thrives in silence. At the same time, son’s preference means that women have to continue to give birth to children until a male legacy is born. For many women, it is not only ignored, but also punished to question the desire to stop the fees, not only ignores, but punished – – – –NFS-5 Reports that almost every three Indian women were exposed to spouses. Processing purpose is not just about clinics or guidelines; It plays in houses and marriages every day. The contraception must therefore be seen not only as a public health service, but also as the front of women’s rights and security.
The evidence worldwide is clear: when women control their fertility, the economies are flourishing. The World Bank Estimates These closing gender gaps in the work of work could unlock 172 trillion dollars worldwide. For India, several studies indicate that an increasing participation of women’s work gives more trillion dollars to the country GDP and underlines the enormous economic costs of exclusion. However, these profits remain unreachable if women’s bodies continue to control and are more of a choice.
The answer cannot be the same – more sterilization, more goals, more rhetoric. The answer lies in the frozen prevention itself. It must no longer be seen as an instrument of population control, but as a pillar of reproductive justice. This means expanding access to temporary and reversible methods, investing in information and advice and reducing the stigma that surrounds the contraception. It also means not engaging men as a spectator, but as an equal partner in reproductive responsibility. Until men assume the same responsibility for contraception, women remain trapped in an unequal burden on both biology and the patriarchy.
It is just as important to recognize the connection between contraception and violence. The denial of the contraception is not only a health problem, but also a front of security and dignity of women. If women cannot reject sex without fear of violence if they cannot decide to prevent the birth company without misuse, reproductive health cannot be reduced to clinics and supplies. It must be rooted in the equality of the sexes, the legal protection and a cultural change that reduces the patriarchal claim.
Until India confronts this reality, his demographic dividend remains a hollow promise that is based on the unpaid, unknown work of women that has the most fundamental right from all: the right to control their own bodies.
Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the India of the population, has been a strong advocate of health, reproductive and sex rights of women as well as for living in rural areas for over 40 years. She has the popular transmedia initiative, main cake Bhi Kar Sacti Hoon-together-a woman, a woman, can achieve everything. Before she came to Pfi, she worked as an Indian Country Director of John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation and also found the Ashoka Foundation, Dastkar and the Society for Lural, Urban and Tribal Initiative (Sruti). Poonam, an alumna of the University of Delhi and the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, is a member of the government council of several non -governmental organizations and regular commentator in India and worldwide for television and print media.