Human rights are viewed narrowly by governments as primarily political and civil (and therefore seen as threatening) rather than as entitlements towards improving well-being in all aspects of human life-socially, culturally and economically. Women's reproductive and sexual health is still perceived only in the context of their reproductive roles and functions. Hence, certain groups of women are "omitted" from receiving comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services such as adolescent/young women, single women, older women and disabled women. Women's reproductive and sexual rights seem to threaten men's control over women and women's bodies. Women's individual reproductive rights are wrongly perceived as a threat to the well-being and interests of the family, community and nation as a whole. Reproductive rights are wrongly perceived as promoting promiscuous sex, abortion and lesbianism. Sexual rights of women are not accepted as a separate issue, and so policies and laws promoting women's sexual rights have not been developed. Women's sexual rights are deemed necessary and only "proper" to be seen within the context of their reproductive roles and functions.

Governments should uphold their commitments to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Beijing Platform for Action and the Cairo Program of Action. Governments need to put in place parallel programs, which would address the promotion of men's reproductive and sexual responsibilities. Change is needed in men who are prone to being violent towards women, who give women no say over their bodies and sexuality and who override women's decisions on these aspects, who have no concerns on how many abortions women have to go through because they won't practice self-control or safer sex, who have no concern that they can and do transmit STDs and HIV to women, and who do not share in the household responsibilities and childcare. Women's health policies, programs and services should therefore not be designed without addressing gender-dis-empowered relations that women face, either in their own homes or with the community. This is not to say that there should be more reproductive health services for men at a time when reproductive healthcare policies, programs and services are either still not in place or need to be improved upon tremendously. A two-pronged approach in empowering women to exercise control over their bodies and sexuality needs to be adopted i.e. not just meeting the unmet need of ALL women in terms of health services but to also sensitize and raise awareness and bring about change in the irresponsible sexual, reproductive, sexist and patriarchal behavior of men.