The Ancient Elephant in the Room: Stigma, Gender Norms, and Cultural Barriers in Reproductive Care in Bangladesh

This paper examines the current state of reproductive care in Bangladesh. In this ten-month-long ethnographic research in three rural Bangladeshi villages, we explored how the sociocultural landscape, cultural beliefs, and healthcare infrastructure impact rural Bangladeshi women's access to quality reproductive healthcare services. Through observations, interviews, focus group discussions, we explored rural people's perception of different existing challenges, including high maternal mortality rates, unmet family planning needs, lack of adolescent sexual and reproductive health education, women's limited access to safe pregnancy experience and termination services, and stakeholder's roles. Additionally, we asked them about emerging opportunities like advancements in ICT and intelligent interventions and policy changes promoting reproductive rights. We found that the concept of reproductive care is strictly gender-normed in Bangladeshi rural communities. Additionally, different types of stigma and privacy issues influence people to shy away from talking about their problems with practitioners and knowledgeable community members. Thus, these stigmas and gender norms have been sustained in communities for generations, blocking people from seeking proper care and creating roadblocks for many existing tools and techniques to be adequately helpful to the community. This paper provides ICTD, HCI, and AI for social good with a holistic understanding of Bangladeshi reproductive care, paving the way for designing culturally appropriate and timely tools and technology for improved service delivery and better health outcomes for women in Bangladesh and similar others in the Global South.