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I wanted to ask you how easy it is for a teenage Bangladeshi girl to have access to these services?

It’s not very. You would be literally looking over your shoulder every minute, to this day sometimes I get paranoid going into places to get contraception because you know, everyone thinks I’m married.

Yeah and apart from that you’re in your 20s now, so’

Exactly so it doesn’t really matter but for someone who isn’t they’ll be looking over their shoulder every minute literally to see if theres someone in the doctor’s or, it might just be me, but I know I felt like that. But I know its very hard and that’s why a lot of people don’t go to get contraception because they’d rather buy it and it is very expensive, but you’re gonna buy a packet of condoms every other day or every other week.

Men don’t usually use the services like females do. I know females use it a lot more. They usually go to places where they know they’re not gonna bump into someone from the same community or they’re gonna go somewhere where they know young girls are using the same service. But theres not very many places that you can go where it’s not situated in a place that you’re likely to bump in to’

Every Family Planning Clinic I know, you’re gonna bump into some Asian family there, that’s why I wouldn’t use it, I don’t use it, I don’t use the clinic. I went there once and I came back straight away, I didn’t go in to use it properly. You know I just felt so uncomfortable.

When I was on my own separate GP’s I would ‘cos I knew, I didn’t really care then who’s looking ‘cos my mum’s not there. My mum was my biggest barrier to cross and people my mum knew. But I’m in a different area and people don’t come to this doctor’s to use the same services as I do. So I felt comfortable to use them.

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How many weeks or months after the childbirth did you start Depo ?

It took a couple of weeks after I had my daughter so I wasn’t quite told that you’ve got to wait for your hormones to calm down, it took almost, straight after I had my daughter because I wasn’t taking another chance of getting pregnant.

I almost took it straight, I’m sure I took it a good couple of weeks after I had the baby. My periods stopped so that I was, you know when you’ve your baby you can bleed?

Yes.

And then that stopped. And then two weeks after I had another period and then after that I took it.

I don’t know if its just the myth over having the Depo but I feel a lot, I feel a lot better in myself, I’m finally doing something, I don’t feel, feel crappy all the time ‘cos theres a big chance that Depo does make you feel like very’ it sometimes makes you feel moody. It gives you mood swings and I did used to snap a lot, for whatever reason. I did sit there feeling miserable or just feeling low all the time and glum.

But I feel a lot better in myself now that I’m not on it. I’m not always moody, I’m actually quite happy, I’m quite the opposite so I don’t know if its just my head or in general but I do feel the difference you know.

I don’t plan to go back on it again.

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And how did you feel about starting your periods?

I knew that kind of seeing you as a woman in those terms and even mentally I felt a change in myself. I’ve noticed this with my younger sister, that before she started her periods she was all jokey, mucking around with people, my brothers you know, she doesn’t do that now. Shes got much older, much older than my younger brother, shes not as childish as he used to be. And like I’ve noticed the same changes in myself. I wouldn’t go and muck around with my brothers and my brothers friends. I just felt really…

Why? Were you told that you have to behave in a certain way?

No, no, not ‘cos I felt like I had to, I just felt different in myself, I was like oh gosh, you know. Especially when I’m on my period I wouldn’t go near people in case I leaked or, the usual fears of being like on your period, like do they know or can they tell that you are, you know.

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Islamically we are married because weve got the new card done but were not registered as married, we are individual people. But if we told people we weren’t married, my child would grow up with the name hanging over her head as a ‘bastard.

You know gossip is the worst form of any physical or mental abuse. You know it can leave a person damaged for life you could say.

Traditional Asian girls are meant to get married, move in with their in-laws and that’s what usually happens. But its not very, some in-laws are all right, I can’t say my mother-in-law was a bad person, I do get on with her which is a good thing because sometimes you don’t.

Nowadays, more than not, daughters-in law are living in their own places and they go to visit their mother-in-law which is what I do. I have got no objection to do that but I am not going to move in with my mother-in-law, I want my own privacy, when I get up in the morning I want to be able to walk around in my nightie or whatever.

You just wanna be able to get up and have a few minutes in bed or I don’t know’ just be myself.

Whereas if you’re living with somebody else you’re gonna automatically get up, get dressed straight away, you’ve got to’ You know you don’t have your own privacy, you’ve got someone looking over your shoulder, whether they’re doing it intentionally or not.

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When I first came off my Depo’ recently I took it because I wasn’t sure whether I was still in the time, you know they give you a time that they’re, that the injection wears off by so just to be sure I wasn’t going to be pregnant I went to the clinic, to my doctor and I said ‘Could I have the pill please because I’ve just come off my Depo and I don’t want it again so I’d rather take the pill and just you know stop it progressing to that stage.

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OK, and did you use any form of contraception?

First time we didn’t and also because I didn’t really know. I knew about condoms but where do you get them? You’re just, you’re 16 and when I did, I’d turned 16 just before I took, because I’d turned 16 in March, and I sort of did it during May and also at that age where my doctor’s is, it’s in my mum’s estate, and well my doctor’s the same doctor as my mum’s. I know they won’t breach confidentiality I just didn’t feel comfortable knowing that you know, I’m going there to get condoms.

Did you know that you could go to other clinics outside your area?

No, not at the time because obviously I wasn’t very sexually active, the fact that I’d only just done it that one time, I wasn’t very aware that I, you know theres other places we can go. Because boys can actually walk into a shop and buy condoms its, its much easier for a bloke to do it than it is for a female, especially a female whose from an Asian community and you have to go’ everywhere you go you bump into an Asian person you know.

And then it’s all about being discrete. You know you don’t wanna walk out with a packet of condoms and you’ve got a huge amount of people standing outside going oh my gosh, even with married people it happens.

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Yeah, Family Planning Clinic, I mean your normal doctor’s will give it to you when you go and see your doctor, when your time comes, or they give you a date when you next need your pills or need your next Depo done.

But when I went to the same doctor but it’s across the hall and then I went to ask them if I could ‘I’m running late for my Depo so I need you to get it done so I don’t end up getting pregnant.

And then they asked me if I was registered. I went ‘Yeah, across there. They go ‘Have you got anything wrong with you?’ and I was like ‘No, I’ve just come from the doctor’s which is, you know you’re linked to it. ‘Have you been to the family clinics before?’ ‘No I haven’t because I didn’t need to use it before,’ you know.

They went in to check with the doctor’s to ask if I was who I was saying I was. You know ‘I’m just sitting there because I’m part of the doctors, I’m part of your doctors, I’ve just come to the Family Planning Clinic because the doctor’s was shut.

I think that was one of the reasons why it was off-putting for young people to go in to Family Planning Clinics, they ask too many things, they need to make the questionnaires not as long or personal.

What kind of things did they ask you?

A little bit of family history, your sexual history so I think that’s also kind of, to know what kind of things you describe your’ Well, sometimes I think they don’t need to know that, you know, they’ve come to you for a reason.

I think also ‘cos they’re over run and they’ve got so many people they don’t really have time to sit down and say ‘Oh you know you’ve got this;’ ‘weve got that, this will get you in. Sometimes when I first started going to use clinics I got the feeling they couldn’t be bothered with young people you know. Because either they don’t have the time or it’s the things like you know ‘look it’s another one who needs condoms.