In 2022, formative research was carried out by the USAID-IFPI (Improved Family Planning Initiative) project consortium, made up of Pathfinder, N’weti, PSI, Abt, Coalizão and MULEIDE, implemented in Nampula, Sofala and Zambézia. The Social Norms Exploration Tool methodology of this research aims to deepen the knowledge of social, cultural and gender norms that influence access to family planning and to identify changes in representations and practices about sexual and reproductive health. It was carried out in Angoche, Dondo and Mopeia to capture ethnic diversity; the urban/rural relationship and coastal/inland areas; and cultural and religious practices, allowing similarities and singularities to be picked up in the narratives of the target group (adolescents aged 13-17) and reference groups (parents and caregivers, leaders and influential members of the communities, and service providers).

This formative research made it possible to identify social, cultural and gender norms which, by shaping the social construction of a dominant model of masculinity, determine that young people and women do not have the power of decision when it comes to accessing family planning services. The socialization mechanisms that shape women and men unequally throughout the life cycle accentuate conformity to a model that normalizes women’s subalternity and links men’s decision-making to being the head and provider of the family. A concept of family leadership in the sense of controlling women’s reproductive and sexual bodies. Male power can also be mediated by the mother who, in the gender order, is essential for the cultural reproduction of inequality. What is at stake is the control of adolescent and young women’s sexuality. The influence of norms, beliefs and myths on women’s access to and use of family planning methods begins at a very early age and the construction of male domination is a process, which does not fall on individual men, but on a system of norms which, incorporating beliefs and myths, legitimize the male mandate for control, where women (mothers, aunts, mothers-in-law, etc.) act as intermediaries. Read more...