Dr. K. Tiala Korkpor-Mulbah is the immunization and health systems strengthening technical officer working with WHO in Monrovia city, Montserrdo county, Liberia. We discuss her story exploring gender norms, roles, behaviors and relations in the access and delivery of immunization services.
This testimonial is part of a collection edited by the Geneva Learning Foundation’s Insights Unit. Analytical commentary is shared by our Insights reviewers from Bridges to Development, the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC), and other partners.
We thank Jean Munro (Gavi) and Michela Manna (WHO) for their participation in the live event.
Working in the Foundation’s platform, national and sub-national immunization staff developed and peer reviewed 571 stories exploring gender norms, roles, behaviors and relations in the access and delivery of immunization services. The complete collection of stories, together with analysis of significant trends and patterns, are available exclusively for Insights subscribers.
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Summary of Dr. K. Tiala Korkpor-Mulbah’s story:
During Round 1 of the polio campaign in 2019 in Liberia, I was supervising an urban city in Monrovia. The team called to say there was a lady of the Muslim faith that had insisted her 3 children under 5 would not take the vaccine. I quickly went to the house along with the national supervisor. On the scene, the lady was very polite to us, but didn’t welcome us inside her home because her ‘husband’ wasn’t home, especially since the national supervisor was a male. She narrated that she had not gotten ‘instructions’ from her husband to vaccinate the children and so we couldn’t vaccinate them until she heard from her husband. She was quite aware of the benefits of vaccines and her children had taken previous vaccines on instructions of the husband. But because he wasn’t at home on the day the vaccination team came to the house, she was not clothed with the authority to decide what happened to the children outside her husband and therefore couldn’t decide on her own and allow the children to be vaccinated.
The 3 children received the vaccine after the father consented.
Dr Tiala’s takeaway from this story
“One way to address this situation is to recruit immunization teams from all areas or religions. In this case, I believe had either of the team members been from the Muslim faith, persuasion of the mother from the onset would’ve been easier.”
Bill Moss’s question (IVAC)
“Was this solely a religion issue or did the fact that the national supervisor was a male play a role?”
Jean Munro’s reflection (Gavi)
“I think another takeaway is the importance of working directly with fathers and informing them of importance of vaccines, vaccine schedules, when/where vaccines will take place and that the husband needs to be available or to bring the children in.”
Chizoba Wonodi’s reflection (IVAC)
“It seemed like the mother was already persuaded, she just did not have the “permission” to vaccinate her kids. In this setting the key lies with the men. Can an approach be to work with communities and their leaders to give “standing permission” to women for vaccinations of children? In thinking about more gender transformative approaches, we could ask, how do we transform social norms to make it okay for women to take decisions about protecting their children with vaccination?”
Jenny Sequeira’s reflection
“This story reflects problems that many locations may face when immunization teams are not inclusive of local populations or do not adequately involve men/fathers. And the ‘fixes’ might not be as easy as the takeaway suggests. So it would be useful for stories like this to include particular efforts tried to address barriers in having more inclusive immunization teams and better involving men/fathers, because it is very likely others are facing similar challenges in overcoming social, cultural, or system norms.”
Michela Manna’s reflection (WHO)
“Immunization campaigns need to take into account the different distribution of power in household decision making and how gender inequality can affect women’s agency to decide for their children. Men’s involvement in care also needs to be strengthened.”
