Human rights organizations call for better protection of sexual and reproductive rights in Latin America

Helena Tian | UCL Faculty of Laws, GB/CN
January 20, 2025

Human rights organizations in Latin America issued a joint statement on Friday, expressing deep concerns about the systematic non-compliance of several Latin American states with international human rights, sexual rights, and reproductive rights (SRHR) obligations.

SRHR are fundamental rights protected by a range of international and regional human rights treaties and in national laws and constitutions … [but] legal and socioeconomic barriers in Latin America are currently undermining the ability to exercise self-determination and bodily autonomy free from discrimination, coercion and violence. The statement underlined several overriding issues, including the criminalization of abortion, the lack of access to comprehensive and quality sexual and reproductive health services, institutional gynaecological and obstetric violence, the misuse of conscientious objection, and a lack of implementation of decisions from international and regional human rights institutions.

Continued: https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/01/human-rights-organizations-call-for-better-sexual-and-reproductive-rights-in-latin-america/

Lack of abortion care is a threat to women’s health in Latin America

Inequalities and restrictions to sexual and reproductive health and rights are endangering women, write Mercedes Colomar and Veronica Fiol

BMJ 2024; 387 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q2530
Published 18 November 2024

Mercedes Colomar, Veronica Fiol

In 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development established a groundbreaking framework recognising reproductive rights as human rights.1 This framework prioritised people and human rights in development—rather than population control. Thirty years on, stark inequalities in sexual and reproductive health and rights persist across national, regional, and global levels. Poor access and restrictions on abortion are contributing to maternal mortality in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In many contexts, women have limited autonomy and decision making power over their health, exacerbating poor health outcomes. Unsafe abortion is a serious public health problem and poses a particular risk to women’s health—especially in countries where abortion is clandestine and often dangerous. The impact of unsafe abortion is particularly severe in young, impoverished, and less educated women. Studies on clandestine abortions in places where abortion is highly restricted show that women with higher incomes have a greater chance of accessing safer abortion methods than those with lower incomes.2 Legislative restrictions, inadequate social support, limited family planning services, and under-resourced healthcare infrastructures contribute to this issue. Complications from these abortions further strain local health systems because of the need for emergency and long term care.

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj.q2530

The global gag rule and women’s abortion rights

Liz Lawrence looks at the importance of birth control for women’s liberation, the history of the global gag rule on healthcare funding for NGOs (non-governmental organizations) which provide abortion services, and the health impact of the global gag rule.

Tuesday 27 August 2024
by Liz Lawrence

In the context of the forthcoming US Presidential election, in which Republican and Democratic parties take very different positions on abortion rights and in which the Democratic presidential contestant, Kamala Harris, is taking a clear pro-choice stance.

Decades of feminist campaigning in many countries have led to a widespread understanding among feminists, socialists and labour movement activists that access to birth control is essential for women’s liberation. Many trade unions now have pro-choice policies. Debates around access to birth control, both contraception and abortion, often contain debates about the position of women in society. For conservatives who seek to restrict reproductive rights women should primarily be wives and mothers, living in a traditional patriarchal family, with other activities, such as education, employment and participation in public life, secondary to the maternal role.

Continued: https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article8649

27.08.2024

Commentary

Ann Richards

Global Gag Rule

International Conference on Population and development

International Planned Parenthood Federation

The ‘Dobbs’ Decision on Abortion Is Hurting People the World Over | Opinion

Aug 09, 2024
By Grace Meng, Barbara Lee, and Diana DeGette

Two years ago, the Supreme Court's devastating Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade and rolled back reproductive rights for millions of people across the United States. Anti-abortion rights activists in other countries were paying attention. The harmful impact of Dobbs isn't just national—it's global.

In Nigeria, Dobbs was used to argue against the Safe Termination of Pregnancy for Legal Indications Guidelines in Lagos State. In Kenya, activists cited the decision to undermine a law affirming abortion as a fundamental human right under the Kenyan constitution. In Uganda, a court cited the Dobbs decision in a ruling that upheld a law effectively criminalizing LGBTQ+ life.

Continued: https://www.newsweek.com/dobbs-decision-abortion-hurting-people-world-over-opinion-1937070

Report: Decades of progress in sexual, reproductive health being rolled back

April 17, 2024
By Lisa Schlein

GENEVA — Decades of progress in sexual and reproductive health are being rolled back with the poorest, most vulnerable members of society at greatest risk of losing out on lifesaving services, according to the 2024 State of World Population report.

The report, issued Wednesday by the U.N. Population Fund, UNFPA, says, “The data are damning.”

Continued: https://www.voanews.com/a/report-decades-of-progress-in-sexual-reproductive-health-being-rolled-back/7573695.html

17.04.2024

News

2024 State of World Population Report

Dr. Natalia Kanem

International Conference on Population and development

maternal deaths

UNFPA

United Nations Population Fund

Between law and sexual rights in Nigeria

Is extant legal framework protecting the sexual and reproductive rights of the Nigerian woman? YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE in this piece explore factors that answer the concerns on the attainment of reproductive health rights, lack of specific legislation, and the seeming unwillingness to domesticate international protocols that Nigeria co-signed.

by Yejide Gbenga-Ogundare
January 31, 2024

The issue of reproductive and sexual health rights has not always been an open discussion in the African society, repressed mainly by cultural beliefs, including in Nigeria, despite the prevalence of maternal mortality and morbidity. According to statistics in the OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development, every day, Nigeria loses 145 women of childbearing age from complications of child birth leading to more focus on health issues and the right to health. But while the right to health has been recognised globally since reproductive health rights gained formal acceptance in 1993, the need for women to have access to quality reproductive health services such as medical care, planned family, safe pregnancy, delivery care and treatment and prevention of sexually-transmitted infections, while gaining recognition, cannot be said to have been given its due pride of place.

Continued: https://tribuneonlineng.com/between-law-and-s3xual-rights-in-nigeria/

Türk urges progress on ‘unfinished agenda’ of women’s sexual and reproductive health rights

19 October 2023
BY Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

(delivered at UNECE Regional Conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development “Population and Development: Ensuring Rights and Choices”)

…When the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development was agreed to by States in Cairo 30 years ago, it promised a profound impact on the lives of women and girls.

It promised them the power to make decisions about their own lives, their bodies, and their futures – rights which should have, in the first place, been non-negotiable.

Continued: https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2023/10/turk-urges-progress-unfinished-agenda-womens-sexual-and

19.10.2023

Commentary

ICPD Programme of Action

International Conference on Population and development

maternal deaths

maternal mortality

Programme of Action

sexual and reproductive health and rights

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

UNECE

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Pakistan – Rubab For Multi-faceted Strategy To Improve Young Mothers’ Reproductive Health

Muhammad Irfan
Published May 23, 2023

QUETTA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News): Parliamentary Secretary Law Dr. Rubaba Khan Buledi Tuesday emphasized the need for adopting comprehensive and multi-faceted strategies to improve reproductive healthcare and the well-being of young mothers and their families.

She expressed the views while addressing at Provincial Consultative Workshop Voluntary National Survey International Conference on Population and Development organized jointly by UNFPA and the Ministry of Planning and Development here.

Continued: https://www.urdupoint.com/en/pakistan/rubab-for-multi-faceted-strategy-to-improve-y-1696412.html

23.05.2023

News

Dr. Rubaba Khan Buledi

International Conference on Population and development

Ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights for youth and adolescents in Myanmar through innovation amid COVID-19 pandemic and political crisis

UNFPA
7 Sep 2022

YANGON, Myanmar— “There is social stigma existing in our community to speak about sexual and reproductive health especially concerning adolescents and youth. People are too shy to talk about it. Since we have grown up under this shadow, we don’t even know that young people have the right to access sexual and reproductive health information,” said Thura, 15, a local youth from Yangon.

Young people in Myanmar face different social and cultural barriers to get right information about sexual and reproductive health and rights. Without having access to sexual and reproductive health information including family planning, young people tend to experience consequences such as unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion, leading to other life-threatening complications. According to 2014 Myanmar Population and Housing Census, the fertility rate of females aged 15-19 was 33 births per 1,000 women. Comparing to urban areas, the teenage fertility is higher in rural areas of states and regions. The data highlights the needs to enhance protection and promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and young people in remote places and in areas undergoing humanitarian crisis.

Continued: https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/ensuring-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-youth-and-adolescents-myanmar-through-innovation-amid-covid-19-pandemic-and-political-crisis

07.09.2022

Featured

News

Aung Pike Tun

Dr. Peter Kivunike Mukasa

International Conference on Population and development

Marie Stopes Myanmar

sexual and reproductive health and rights

UNFPA

United Nations Population Fund

The safety concern in abortion debate

Mohammad Javed Pasha
July 31, 2022

Abortion is a public health concern besides being a sensitive issue with religious, moral, cultural and political dimensions. More than a quarter of the world’s people live in countries where the procedure is permitted only in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities or to save the pregnant person’s life. Abortions still occur in these countries, nearly half of them are unsafe, performed by unskilled practitioners or in unhygienic conditions, or both.

Abortions performed in unsafe conditions claim the lives of tens of thousands of women around the world every year and leave many times that with chronic and often irreversible physical and mental health problems becoming a drain on the resources of public health systems. Controversy, however, often overshadows the public health impact. An estimated 73 million abortions occur globally each year. Unsafe abortions accounts for up to 13 percent of deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth worldwide. Globally, at least 7 million women are treated every year for complications from unsafe abortions.

Continued: https://www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/978303-the-safety-concern-in-abortion-debate

31.07.2022