Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health Education 2016 they are hesitant to take part in such discussions. Since the FG’s required at least 10 participants per session, a request was made to the island council to randomly select more participants. However, in the few sessions that they were able to manage, it was noted that only 7 or 8 males participated. There was also an instance where the council assigned a group of 10 female participants as a replacement for a male group. This particular session had to be conducted with 20 female participants as all of them wanted to participate. Additionally, there were also a few times when some of the FGDs were canceled at the last minute. For instance, the FGDs with the students of Hdh. Vaikaradhoo were unexpectedly cancelled as the School Board did not allow the researchers to conduct the FGD. According to the School Board it was deemed unacceptable that the topic of SRH be discussed with children. In addition to this there was also a case where FGDs with the students from one school in Addu City was abruptly halted and later dismissed due to the interruption by one of the school’s teachers. Despite the problem being brought to the attention of the school management and the island council, the FGDs could not be continued thereafter. This was in sharp contrast to the FGDs conducted with the parents of the same school where the researchers were able to identify that most parents wanted their children to be introduced to SRH. They even requested from the researchers to retake the session that was cancelled. However, given that the school management remained reluctant, the researchers were not able to continue with the FGDs among the students in that school. Moreover, the lack of human resources and funding restricted the research team from expanding the scope of the research to the other regions of the Maldives. With only two members to conduct all the FGDs in all the islands, the effort that had to be put in was strenuous, as the trips had to be scheduled 13 INTRODUCTION