Asia-Pacific Population Journal - Volume 11, Issue 3, 1996

Intervention programmes aimed at reducing child labour need to focus on both alleviating poverty and increasing literacy

More attention should be paid to the quality of care offered by family welfare assistants instead of focusing on quantitative targets

Adolescents, their parents and the community should be made more aware of the negative consequences of early marriage, early pregnancy and large family size

A major outcome of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) is the expansion of population programmes to include reproductive health services and strategies to raise the status of women (United Nations, 1994). Grassroots women’s organizations influenced the recommendations as well as the strategies for their implementation. In the pre-planning stages within countries and during the Conference itself, the Women’s Caucus, representing more than 400 organizations from 62 countries, stressed the important role that women’s empowerment plays in promoting acceptance and use of reproductive health services (Ashford, 1995). They argued that women who are empowered, that is, who have control over their lives and have skills in seeking information and using resources, are more likely to make their own reproductive decisions.