Dialogue Declaration

After two days of dialogue with a wide range of delegates from Civil Society declared that :

Our own Constitution provides for the establishment of a society based on social justice and fundamental rights, and a society where the quality of life of all citizens should be improved; and where the full potential of the citizens should be realized.
The right to basic health care provides for the right of every person ‘to make decisions concerning reproduction,’ and the right to have access to ‘reproductive health care.’
In its General Comment No 12, (the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), defined reproductive health as follows:
“Reproductive health means that women and men have the freedom to decide if and when to reproduce and the right to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice as well as the right of access to appropriate health care services that will, for example, enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth,”

The following declaration was taken by representatives of Civil Society and other stakeholders at the Inaugural 2008 TVEP Female Condom Dialogues held at the Garden Court ORT, Johannesburg from the 10th to 11th of September 2008.

We the undersigned declare :

• Lack of adequate access to Female Condoms constitutes a human rights violation.
• An expanded definition of human rights inclusive of such issues as choice, accessibility and gender should
be supported.
• Access to free and easily accessible quality female condoms restores women’s self-esteem and dignity
• The Female Condom is the only female initiated and controlled prevention and protection method and as such
full participation of all stakeholders and the private sector must be incorporated into any strategy
relating to access.
• The inequitable distribution of female and male condoms in the current National Strategic Plan is
unacceptable and should be challenged immediately.
• Social norms are the major drivers of discrimination and inequalities and they contribution towards the
feminization of HIV.
• The use of any condom further empowers people o reduce the rate of reinfection and increased the total
number of protected sex acts.

We further acknowledge that Universal Access to Female Condoms can only be achieved through enhanced

o Resource Allocation
o Education & Training
o Infrastructure Development and
o Ensuring adequate policy implementation
o The roll out of male circumsion as an HIV prevention method need to be further investigated as to the
impact of women’s risks and vulnerabilities to HIV. In the context of potential decreased male condom use
as a result of MC programmes, we strongly believe that universal access to female condoms is thus
understood as a pre-requisite