'Free access to contraceptive methods now much more difficult in Türkiye'

"Sexual health is your right"

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The Ministry of Health is not anymore distributing contraceptive pills and products such as condoms for free in primary healthcare institutions in Türkiye states Filiz Kocaboğa from Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights Platform (CİSÜ).

Whereas, she emphasizes, that together with the economic crisis, women are having more difficulty in getting access to simple contraceptive methods.

Filiz Kocaboğa from CİSÜ spoke to bianet about the problem.

'Türkiye returning to 80's'

Kocaboğa told bianet that Türkiye focused on sexual health and reproductive health rights for a certain period, due to the national development policies followed, but that the country was doing poorly recently.

Kocaboğa said, "In the past Türkiye made progress in contraceptive methods but today we are falling behind even those gains.

"We are again in a period where we have to explain to the individuals about birth control, family planning and we have to emphasize that people should have access to contraceptive methods.

"During the pandemic, we organized workshops on this issue and we are preparing reports on this issue. What we see is that with the pandemic it has become much more difficult to get access to contraceptive methods which were formerly provided publicly free of charge to everyone who needed them.

"These were accessible in Family Health Centers which are primary healthcare institutions in the past free of charge however with the pandemic distribution of these has stopped."

"It is written in Law no. 2827 on population planning that the state should provide these tools for free. We are trying to draw attention to this and point out that they do not exist. The Ministry of Health does not allocate any budget for this.

"No announcements are being made on the amount of such tools and pills the Ministry is purchasing. Nor on the amount it distributes. And access to them gets more and more difficult in this economic crisis with current prohibitive prices.

Kocaboğa says that free access to contraceptive methods is a basic human right. She also underlines that access to these methods is a primary healthcare service and should be provided by the state. (ED/EMK/PE/VK)