A new survey reveals that 81 percent of the women aged 15-19 years that were surveyed, do not use any contraceptive method, with 68 percent of women aged 20-24 years not using any method either.
This is based on the Fiji Bureau of Statistics Fiji Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) which was carried out in 2021 in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Medical Services and other government ministries, as part of the Global MICS Programme.
The survey confirms that above two thirds of women aged 15-49 years do not use any type of contraceptive method, regardless of their level of education or wealth.
The met need for family planning to space births among currently married or in union women aged 15-49 years is only 10 percent.
It says overall, 31 percent of women aged 15-49 years use modern family planning method.
Meanwhile the reporting of having multiple sexual partners in the last 12 months is higher among men than among women. For instance, among men aged 15-24 years, this is almost seven times higher than among women in the same age group.
Among adolescent girls aged 15-19 years, 11 percent have reported having sex with partners 10 or more years older.
The survey says women aged 15-24 years are more knowledgeable about ways of HIV prevention (30 percent) than men in the same age group (26 percent).
Women aged 15-24 years with tertiary or vocational levels of education are three times more likely to have comprehensive knowledge about ways of HIV prevention than women with primary or lower levels of education.
Discriminatory attitudes toward people living with HIV are higher among women aged 15-49 years (61 percent) compared to men (54 percent) in the same age group.
The proportion of women and men aged 15-49 years undergoing HIV test in the last 12 months and know their test results are very low (7 percent and 4 percent, respectively).
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