these challenges were the issues relating to lack of basic health care facilities in some outer islands), limited access to specialist health care (even in islands where island and regional hospitals are established), regional hospitals not having adequate equipment, lack of systematic development of health personnel across the nation and lack of legislative protections. In addition, the review also highlights the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of health services.75 69. Although there are regional hospitals and healthcare centres throughout Maldives, basic health services including sexual and reproductive health services are not fully and easily accessible to people living in the atolls. Hospitals/Health centres in the atolls, lack healthcare equipment and professionals including gynaecologists and gynaecology equipment and devices.76 70. Information gathered from HRCM’s the atoll monitoring visits revealed that there have been many incidents where sensitive medical information of patients were leaked from the health centre. As a result, many women do not trust health facilities and their service providers, especially in the islands where small communities live. 71. Empirical evidence suggests high numbers of abortions in the Maldives which indicates that sexual relations among teens and unmarried adults are very common.77 However, there has been no formal study done in this specific area. The second Maldives baseline human rights survey conducted by HRCM stated that illegal abortion is a publicly known issue. A quarter of women and 15.9% of men who took part in the survey answered in the affirmative to the question about knowledge of illegal abortion – which would appear to indicate a relatively high incidence of abortion in the Maldives.78 Cases of abortion, infanticide and abandoned infants have been often reported in local media7980. However, access to contraceptives is limited to married couples to a certain degree in the atolls although it is necessary to provide contraceptive information and access to the youth population. Furthermore, age appropriate sex education is not provided in schools and parents are not aware of the importance of it and are very much against the idea of providing such education.81 Page 26 of 35