Open Call for Contributions for “Pasya: stories, practices, and perspectives on SRHR”

Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR) is now accepting article submissions for inclusion in the first issue of Pasya, a new publication tackling sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in the Philippines.

Pasya is the Filipino word for decision, or a choice one makes after thinking carefully. At Pasya, we believe that when advocates, women and girls have the access and capacity to use information, are aware of their rights and entitlements, and have the opportunity to voice their rights, they can effectively demand obligations from power holders to bring about change in policy and practice, and create a positive shift in social and – cultural norms and values so women and girls are free and able to make informed choices towards having safe and healthy sexual and reproductive health and lives, free from stigma, fear, and violence. Pasya aims to collect and share learnings and advocacy practices, and amplify the stories and demands of  women, girls, and other vulnerable and marginalized groups. 

This first issue of Pasya will focus on SRHR in the time of COVID-19. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations and groups working in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in the Philippines have sounded the alarm on the possible negative effects the pandemic will have on people’s SRHR. 

For those in low- to middle-income countries with uneven if not, poor health care systems like the Philippines, what is already limited access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services would clearly be affected. Social measures such as local or national lockdowns and other mobility restrictions would also have huge implications on people’s daily economic and social activities, including the provision of SRH information and services.

As impacts of the ongoing pandemic on SRHR in the Philippines have yet to be fully experienced, this first issue of Pasya aims to provide an overview of the SRHR situation in the Philippines amid the pandemic. More specifically, it will attempt to:

1. discuss critical SRHR issues and challenges that have surfaced as a result of COVID-19;
2. highlight the responses of SRHR activists, women’s rights organizations, and grassroots communities to such issues and challenges; and
3. document the stories and experiences of persons living in intersecting vulnerabilities, particularly of women and girls in all their diversities.

We invite you to contribute an essay, opinion article, feature article or study results in line with our theme. Please send your abstracts or proposals to (200-500 words) to office@wgnrr.org by September 15, 2020. We are also accepting experimental pieces, visual and textual media and political interventions, including interviews, short stories, poems and photographic essays for an Open Space section on women’s rights, human rights and SRHR issues that may or may not fall within the issue’s focus. 

Pasya is supported by the SHE Project, funded by Oxfam Canada and Global Affairs Canada.