Posts tagged ‘sexual and reproductive rights’

March 24th, 2011

On sexual and reproductive rights, Meet Jacqueline Sharpe

Jacqueline Sharpe is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist from Trinidad and Tobago and the president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), a global service provider and a leading advocate of sexual and reproductive health and rights working in 150 countries. Its areas of action include abortion, access, adolescents, advocacy and AIDS/HIV.

Although there is an area of over-lap between them, sexual and reproductive rights are two separate issues.

Sexual rights include the right of all people to make free and responsible decisions about all aspects of their own sexuality, including deciding to be sexually active or not and protecting and promoting their reproductive and sexual health; The right to be free from discrimination, coercion and violence in one’s sexual life, and when making sexual decisions; The right to expect and demand equality, full consent, mutual respect and shared responsibility in all sexual relationships and to pursue a satisfying, safe and pleasurable sexual life.

On the other side reproductive rights include the rights of couples and individuals to freely and responsibly decide the number, spacing and timing of their children; The right to have the information, education and means to make the above decisions; The right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health and the right to make decisions free from discrimination, coercion and violence.

Sexual and reproductive rights are included in international conventions such as CEDAW (see blogroll), the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, and the Plan of Action which emerged from the International Conference on Population and Development (El Cairo, 1994).

In the IPPF’s webpage it is stated that “young people (those who are btw 10 and 24 years old) face the barriers of cost, stigma and fear of going to a clinic. The lack of information targeted at their needs and (in many countries) the need for parental consent, limits young people’s  awareness of the issues of sex and sexuality. High rates of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections are powerful evidence that programmes are failing to meet their needs”.

How does IPPF work to meet young people’s needs?

We strongly believe that young people should be aware of their sexual and reproductive life to make decisions. Since we recognize and respect that people have belief systems what we try to do is provide young people with information, education and services and also to have them negotiate their values so that the decisions they make are congruent with themselves.

IPPF works with religious leaders in several countries also to have young people negotiate with them. In the Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago, for instance, we have a specific project on youth sexuality in the context of preventing HIV and we have been working with the Anglican church. We started with one priest and now have several church communities wanting to participate in our programme. I think it is something that has to be done project by project and place by place.

In addition to provide services to young people we also want to encourage them to participate in the organization. At the moment 20 percent of the board directors of IPPF are people under the age of 25.

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CategoryGender issues, Interviews | Comment8 Comments »

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February 8th, 2011

Gender inequality, a HIV social driver

Worldwide fewer people are becoming infected from HIV and fewer are dying from AIDS. Deaths among children younger than 15 years of age are also declining. What remains is discrimination and lack of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. Two thirds of the 15 million people who would need treatment do not receive it. 

According to the UNAIDS (UN programme on HIV/AIDS) 2010 report 22.5 out of around 33.3 million people globally living with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa, where young women between 15 and 24 years old are 8 times more likely than men to be HIV positive. 80% of the women living with HIV worldwide live in the region.

Gender inequality remains one of the main HIV social drivers. According to the UNAIDS report the HIV epidemics and sex and reproductive health are intertwined. HIV related causes contribute to at least 20% of maternal deaths and countries with high HIV rates also have high teenage pregnancy and unsafe abortion rates while very few countries involve men in reproductive health programmes. Violence and HIV rates are also often associated.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia are the only regions where the number of people living with HIV has almost tripled since 2000. The proportion of women living with HIV is also growing. Female sex workers, people who inject drugs and men who have sex with men, whom remain often underserved in HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, account for most of the new infections both in these regions and worldwide.

Nafis Sadik is Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General and UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. As former head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) she became the first woman, in the history of the United Nations, to lead one of its major voluntarily funded programmes. She is an expert on international maternal and child health, reproductive and sexual health, including family planning, on population and development and gender and development. She was born in Pakistan and lives in the United States.

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February 2nd, 2011

The invisible barriers

At the end of 2010 the European Union officially ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, becoming the first intergovernmental group to sign on to an international human rights treaty. According to the Convention, which entered into force on January 22, 2011 persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments “which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”. In the European Union they represent 15% of the residents from the 27 countries (more than 80 million people). One in six has a disability that ranges from mild to severe while over one third of people aged over 75 have disabilities that restrict them to some extent and the number is set to rise as the EU population grows progressively older. Eighty per cent of the 650 million persons with disabilities worldwide live in developing countries.

The convention has been signed by 147 states worldwide including all 27 EU Member States and ratified by 97 states (16 of them in the EU).  Ratifying countries should take action in access to education, employment, transport, infrastructures and buildings open to the public, granting the right to vote, improving political participation and ensuring full legal capacity of all people with disabilities. A Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will monitor all the measures taken to give effect to the obligations under the Convention and  follow up the progress made in that regard.

Equality between men and women stands out as one of the conventions’ general principles while one of its articles is dedicated to ‘women with disabilities’. The same text recognizes in fact that “women and girls with disabilities are subject to multiple discrimination and in this regard States Members shall take measures to ensure the full and equal enjoyment by them of all human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

The first thing that comes to my mind while reading the Convention text is the theatre play of Dones no Estàndards (non-standard women) I have recently seen in Barcelona. “La discapacitat, discrimina o sedueix?” (Does disability discriminates or does it seduce?), a fierce criticism towards the lack of respect of the health, sexual and reproductive rights of women with disabilities and a claim to the unspoken gender-violence they receive. The moment to know more about it has come.

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